The Wyoming Legislature on Wednesday overrode Gov. Mark Gordon’s veto of a bill requiring women to get ultrasounds before receiving abortion pills in Wyoming.
The override was one of five the Legislature has issued to Gordon’s vetoes so far this session. During the 2024 session, the Legislature only overrode line-item vetoe the governor made.
House Enrolled Act 35 requires women who get abortion pills to have an ultrasound no less than 48 hours beforehand that they must pay for. The bill would have no impact on surgical abortions.
The legislation passed both chambers with a large majority before the governor vetoed it Monday night, calling the ultrasound mandate a “personally invasive” and an “often medically unnecessary procedure.”
On Wednesday, the Senate finalized the override by two votes, voting 22-9 to override the governor. A two-thirds majority is needed to override a veto.
The House passed the override more easily on a 45-16 margin.
Invasive Concerns
Even a few senators who voted in support of HEA 35 and the override, who consider themselves to be pro-life on abortion, expressed concerns about the bill on Wednesday.
The biggest source of their concern is the fact that the bill offers no exemptions for women who get pregnant as a result of rape or incest, requiring them to get a transvaginal ultrasound, which involves inserting the top of a long, thin device into the vagina, before getting their abortion pills. Most ultrasounds women undergo before they reach 10-12 weeks of gestation are transvaginal.
“This bill is flawed,” said state Sen. Gary Crum, R-Laramie. “I’m going to be for the override but this bill needs some work.”
Crum had earlier brought an amendment to remove the ultrasound requirement from the bill. He hopes next year the Legislature can definitively address what is considered a human life while trying to not overly burden women.
Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, who has never supported the bill, skewered the legislation for what it does.
“We’re victimizing them again,” Case warned of the bill’s impact on sexual assault victims.
Sen. Laura Pearson, R-Kemmerer, disagreed with these points. She and other supporters of the bill have argued that an ultrasound should be required to determine whether or not the amount of abortion chemical is being correctly administered based on the size of the fetus in the womb.
“This bill is about protecting not only the mother, but (also) the child. Many can say this is intrusive, but the facts are that these abortion drugs are not safe after a certain gestational period of the baby,” she said. “That’s the reason for the vaginal ultrasound.”
Sen. Ed Cooper, R-Ten Sleep, agreed with Pearson, saying overriding the governor on this bill brings the Senate “to a level that it really needs to” be at.
Ongoing Abortion Litigation
Sen. Barry Crago, R-Buffalo, also voted for the override but warned that it could put Wyoming’s ongoing abortion lawsuit at the state Supreme Court in jeopardy.
He issued a similar concern about a bill passed into law in 2023 that bans most abortions in Wyoming, which ended up nullifying an ongoing lawsuit over a 2022 ban. If this happens again, Crago warned the Legislature is not doing its job.
“At some point we have to decide as a Legislature … at what point do we want to let the court decide,” he said. “It should weigh heavy on all of us. We need to understand the truth of what we’re doing from a legal perspective.”
HEA 35 is one of two abortion bills passed during the 2025 session. The other regulates surgical abortion clinics as ambulatory surgery centers in Wyoming. Immediately after Gordon signed this bill into law it was challenged in court.
Reps. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie, Tom Kelly, R-Sheridan, Bill Allemand, R-Midwest, and Gary Brown, R-Cheyenne, were watching from the Senate gallery as the Senate issued the override.
Provenza, a sexual assault victim, told Cowboy State Daily she doesn’t know if litigation will follow this law as well, but she does believe Wyoming residents will stand in opposition to what she considers an infringement on the personal rights of women “in such a deeply personal and disturbing way.”
“When big government mandates ultrasounds and wait periods, they also mandate that women wait to safely pass their miscarriages, placing them at greater risk of sepsis infections,” she said. “I will continue to fight for real issues that impact the people of Wyoming, like maternal healthcare access, childcare, and economic opportunities.”
Other Veto Overrides
On Wednesday, the Legislature also overrode the governor on a bill that would remove the cap on the number of charter schools that the Wyoming Charter School Authorizing Board may authorize, and overrode the governor on his veto of a bill expanding the Hathaway Scholarship Program.
The Senate also overrode on Wednesday his veto of a bill that will require legislative approval for major rule changes for state agencies. That bill will now move on to the House for override consideration.
These overrides come in addition to an override the Legislature made on Tuesday for a bill meant to give state law enforcement more options to deal with mystery drones over critical infrastructure.
The only veto override the Legislature has rejected so far was on Wednesday for a bill creating a threshold requirement for a bond election to be counted in Wyoming.
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
