The anti-abortion community of Casper came out to a city council meeting on Tuesday night to voice their concerns about alleged harassment and violence they said they’ve been subjected to while protesting outside an abortion clinic.
During a Casper City Council meeting last week, council member Brandy Haskins said she recently got a phone call from an employee of the facility and patients there stating that people going to the Wellspring Health Access Clinic have reported being harassed and threatened when trying to enter the building by anti-abortion protestors outside. Haskins floated the idea of having the council possibly discuss the matter at a future meeting.
This drew outrage from the anti-abortion community of Casper, who argued that people protesting outside the facility were the actual victims of harassment. Nearly 20 of these people spoke on the issue at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
Haskins clarified on Tuesday that her previous suggestion that the council may want to consider looking at options for protecting those who enter the clinic does not equate to her advocating on behalf of the clinic. Had the demonstrators called her with similar complaints, Haskins said she would have said the same thing.
“I’m here to advocate for the people who ask me to advocate for them for city matters and that is it,” she said. “That has nothing to do with political, religious or legal rights in regards to abortion.”
Voices Of The Protestors
One of those who spoke on Tuesday was state Rep. Jeanette Ward, R-Casper, who frequently protests outside the clinic, which opened for business in 2023 after an arson delayed its opening by nearly a year. Ward lost her reelection bid to Republican challenger Julie Jarvis in the primary election this August.
Ward said the people who protest outside the abortion clinic are the real victims.
Mentioning an instance she said occurred on July 20, 2023, Ward said a woman allegedly approached her group and spat at their feet. The woman then asked Ward for a hug. When Ward consented, the woman coughed in her ear while giving her a hug and then also spat at her feet.
Two weeks prior, Ward said this same woman committed acts of intimidation against the protestors.
“Who, I say, is harassing whom?” Ward questioned.
Although there are “no trespassing” signs surrounding the Wellspring property, Ward pointed out that Wellspring does not own the sidewalk or street in front of its “macabre establishment.”
“We protestors are not going to back down,” she said.
All of the 18 people who spoke on Tuesday shared stories of Wellspring staff allegedly harassing demonstrators. No pro-abortion advocates or Wellspring staff spoke at the meeting. Wellspring did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.
Casper resident John Brodrecht claimed that he was pushed by pro-abortion advocate Jane Ifland into traffic on Second Street outside the clinic.
“If there would have been a car coming I would have been killed or injured severely,” he said.
Ifland told Cowboy State Daily this account is completely false and that Brodrecht was actually the one who pushed her into the street.
“I have lived in this community since 1980 and I have never done any violence against anyone,” she said.
Natrona County School Board Trustee Mary Schmidt said that when she and others perform the Holy Rosary directly in front of the entrance of Wellspring, the facility tries to drown them out by playing “very loud, offensive music” and yelling at them. Schmidt said actions like this have stopped her from bringing her children with her to demonstrate at the clinic.
“It is not us that are not making the patient’s visits serene,” she said.
At times, Tuesday's conversation strayed into the morality of abortion rather than discussing the claims of harassment.
Casper resident Cross True said about 50% of the license plates that enter the Wellspring parking lot are from out-of-state.
“We in Casper are exporting the end of life for certain people,” he said.
Council Reaction
When the Wellspring Clinic first came to Casper around 2022, the city council declined public requests at that time to make an anti-abortion statement on abortion. Mike Pyatt, president of the conservative group Liberty’s Place 4 U, renewed this request to the council on Tuesday.
The council didn’t take Pyatt up on this request, but council member Kyle Gamroth clarified that he doesn’t condone any acts of violence. He encouraged the audience to report all criminal activity in the city to Casper Police.
Similarly, council member Lisa Engebretsen commended the anti-abortion speakers for their efforts but pointed out that the Casper City Council is nonpartisan and doesn’t take a public stance on issues like abortion.=
“As a bipartisan council we are representing all citizens and we have to consider that,” she said.
Council member Ray Pacheco took a slightly stronger stance, saying the council stands against violence made against any human being. He considers abortion a complicated issue that will not see universal agreement, but said the topic has affected him personally.
Gamroth also pointed out that nobody spoke on behalf of Wellspring or abortion access at Tuesday’s meeting and that it can be difficult for the council to make decisions for the community when there’s only a limited amount of information to go off of.
“We just are trying to do the best to make the decisions that we think most accurately represent the sentiments of the community,” Gamroth said.
“I think everyone in the room could also acknowledge that doesn’t accurately reflect the sentiments of the community as a whole,” he said.
Gamroth, who said he disagrees with protesters “to some extent” on the topic of abortion, said he spent part of a recent afternoon observing one of their protests at Wellspring, but didn’t see any harassment take place during that visit.
A Wellspring employee did receive a misdemeanor charge that she pleaded no contest to in regard to an incident that took place between her and protestors.
Gamroth also questioned the claim made by one of the public commenters that Casper has also been a city that has taken a stance against abortions. He mentioned a 2022 University of Wyoming survey showing that a majority of residents support some form of abortion access in Wyoming. Gamroth also mentioned how during the approval process for Wellspring in 2022, there were many contentious debates between members of both the pro-life and pro-choice communities.
In 2023, the Wyoming Legislature passed a law banning most forms of abortion in the state, but Gamroth said he doesn’t believe this is “as empirically-driven as a well-done survey.”
“You’re all clearly in strong opposition to the practice of abortion, but for myself … certainly for me it’s not clear where our community sits on this issue,” Gamroth said.
Engebretsen brought up the 2021 discussions in Casper regarding a hate crime ordinance that was passed and aimed at preventing discrimination and harassment, which she believes could apply to the protestors.
“We cannot legislate good behavior and we cannot tell people to be a good human,” she said.
Casper resident Kyle True implored the council to find a happy medium between respecting the wishes of the clinic and respecting the protestors’ right to free speech.
Council member Amber Pollock suggested a possible future discussion about creating an official buffer zone for where the protestors can officially congregate outside the clinic. The council directed the city attorney to draft a memo on the legality of this topic.
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
