JACKSON (WNE) — Oral arguments for the abortion battle in the Wyoming Supreme Court have been scheduled for April 16.

Supreme Court justices will hear from attorneys representing the state and the plaintiffs challenging two abortion bans passed by the Wyoming Legislature in 2023. Ninth District Court Judge Melissa Owens struck down the “Life is a Human Right Act” and a medical abortion ban in November 2024, and her permanent injunction was almost immediately appealed to the state’s high court.

Owens’ decision was based on the argument that the laws impeded the fundamental right laid out in the Wyoming Constitution by making health care decisions for an entire class of people: pregnant women. 

Now, Supreme Court justices will decide whether her interpretation of state law and the Wyoming Constitution stands.

The attorneys representing the state in defense of the Legislature’s bans and the abortion advocates and providers hoping to keep abortion legal in Wyoming have already filed their 100-page briefs. Those extensive documents lay the groundwork for the oral arguments that will be heard in April.

But there are other participants that have filed to join the lawsuit, including the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Hindu American Foundation and the Religious Community for Reproductive Choice. The lawmakers who helped introduce and pass the abortion bans, as well as Right to Life of Wyoming, also filed to join and were denied.

Although the Johnson v. Wyoming case has moved up to the Supreme Court, a new abortion lawsuit began Tuesday in the 9th District Court in Teton County. The two targeted restrictions on abortion providers passed in the most recent legislative session, House Bill 42 and House Bill 64, were challenged by almost identical plaintiffs.