Dear editor,
The 2025 Wyoming legislature has convened and several lawmakers put forth bills that will significantly restrict access to abortion in our state if they pass. One, HB 0064, would require a medically-unnecessary, and pricey, ultrasound 48 hours before any abortion procedure. The other, HB 0042, would force any clinic that provides procedural abortions to be licensed as an ambulatory surgical center.
I am a retired physician who specialized in Ob/GYN and clinical genetics and am a volunteer with Wyoming’s abortion fund, so I am well-versed in the issues around reproductive health and maternity care and have the credentials and background to author this piece.
The lawmakers behind these bills claim they are an effort to keep women safe. But these bills are actually blatant attempts to further impede women’s choices and their constitutionally-protected right to make their own healthcare decisions.
Requiring an ultrasound before an abortion is almost always medically unnecessary, especially in the first trimester, when 93 percent of abortions occur. Both procedural and medication abortions are extremely safe – much safer even than childbirth, which carries with it a 14-times higher risk of maternal death than abortion. In fact, according to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Both bills are simply legislative efforts to make essential medical care more difficult to access. For decades abortions have been provided safely at clinics that are not licensed surgical centers and safely without an ultrasound first. In Wyoming where reproductive healthcare is already becoming increasingly difficult to find, these bills represent discriminatory government overreach and lawmaking rooted in ideology, rather than best practice.
Wyomingites have always valued limited government and personal liberty. These bills are brazen contradictions of those principles and infringe on our state constitution by interfering in private healthcare decisions. Our legislators must reject both HB0064 and HB0042 and stand instead for policies that uphold fundamental personal freedoms and individual autonomy, respect medical expertise, and ensure access to essential healthcare for women no matter where they live or how much money they have. These harmful bills simply have no place in our state.
Respectfully,
Jone Sampson, MD
Bedford, WY
