CHEYENNE—Two Wyoming Freedom Caucus bills that would place heavy restrictions on abortion access passed easily through a House of Representatives committee Friday morning, with no questions asked by committee members on expert testimony from the public. The committee chairperson decides how to regulate the procedures of the meeting. House Labor, Health and Social Services Committee Chairwoman Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, R-Cody, did allow committee members to question a state agency providing testimony but did not allow the panel to ask questions during public testimony on the bills related to abortion access. Partway through public comment Wednesday, Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson, asked Rodriguez-Williams if committee members would be allowed to ask questions on testimony. Rodriguez-Williams said no, due to the high volume of public comment. More than a dozen people, many of whom are medical professionals, showed up to testify on the controversial legislation. Yin told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle after the meeting it appeared to him these bills were being rushed. “It’s important to be able to have committee members understand from the experts what the policy effects are, and that’s impossible to do if we cannot ask questions of them,” Yin said in a text message to the Tribune Eagle. “But their purpose is to ram through these bills as fast as possible.” Cheyenne resident Wendy Volk approached the Tribune Eagle after Friday’s meeting with the same concern. With medical experts among those testifying on the bills restricting abortion access, Volk found it concerning there was little discussion with the committee. “It made me very uncomfortable that, on the three abortion bills, there was no opportunity for the committee to talk to the doctors or the experts in the room,” Volk said. “In all transparency, these three bills were really rushed.” This is a change from the committee’s practices last year. Volk and Yin said lawmakers had the opportunity to ask questions during public testimony on similar legislation during the 2024 budget session. People braved single-digit temperatures on Jan. 18, 2025 in Lander to attend an a reproductive rights rally. A smaller group of counter-protesters gathered across the street. (Katie Klingsporn/WyoFile) Three bills were passed by members of the House Labor Committee that would restrict reproductive health care in Wyoming. Health care experts argued these bills would disproportionately burden rural women in accessing reproductive health care services. House Bill 64, ”Chemical abortions-ultrasound requirement,” sponsored by Freedom Caucus member and House Speaker Rep. Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, passed the committee on Wednesday, with a 7-1 vote. The bill requires pregnant women to get an ultrasound no more than 48 hours before taking an abortion pill. Anyone who violates this bill would be charged as a felon, with up to a $20,000 fine, up to five years imprisonment or both. Two more bills were passed by the committee Friday morning, both of which also appear to severely restrict abortion access in Wyoming, which is currently legal. House Bill 42, “Regulation of surgical abortions,” requires Wyoming’s only abortion clinic to be licensed as an ambulatory surgical center. “As long as abortion remains legal in Wyoming, we have the responsibility for the safety of women,” said Rep. Martha Lawley, R-Worland, the bill’s sponsor. “HB 42 provides common-sense regulations for surgical abortion to protect the health and safety of women who choose to get surgical abortion.” The committee’s sole Democrat, Yin, voted against all three pieces of legislation. ‘Put us out of business’ Wellspring Health Access in Casper is the only surgical abortion center in Wyoming. This nonprofit organization provides a multitude of reproductive care services, including pelvic exams, pap smears, emergency birth control, cancer screenings, STD testing and treatment, and treatment for urinary tract infections. “We feel that this is specifically targeted to put us out of business,” said Executive Director Katherine Knutter. Knutter told the committee Wednesday, when discussion began on the bill before continuing Friday, that the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and many other reputable medical establishments have strongly opposed similar measures in past years. Wellspring Health Access in Casper opened nearly a year after it was set on fire. This picture was taken in December 2022. (Dustin Bleizeffer/WyoFile) House Bill 42 would restrict these health care services “with punitive detrimental measures,” Knutter said. In order “to comply with this trap bill,” the abortion clinic would have to undergo extensive construction, she said. The bill also requires all of the clinic’s physicians to receive hospital admitting privileges, which is a “major barrier,” Knutter said. Not only is this access blocked for political reasons, but abortion clinic physicians don’t admit enough patients to the hospital on an annual basis. “Because abortion is very, very safe,” Knutter said. Dr. Rene Hinkle, an OB-GYN at the Cheyenne Women’s Clinic, told the committee abortions are 11 times safer than a pregnancy. The bill is also unnecessary, she said, since there are plenty of operations, such as vasectomies, that are performed in a doctor’s office. “This is definitely a directed bill,” Hinkle said. “If you really are concerned about the safety of the citizens of Wyoming, you would include all of those [operations], because those have a higher complication rate than do abortions.” She pointed to another component of the bill, which requires the abortion facility to be located within a 10-mile radius of a hospital, whereas other surgical centers in Wyoming are required to be within a 50-mile radius. “The fact that this was 10 is obviously just a target on the Wellspring clinic,” Hinkle said. Volk said she’s never seen the Wyoming Legislature attack a business the way this bill does. “To drive them out of business in Wyoming, that is not pro-business,” said Volk, who also stated she’s a Republican and a local business leader. “That is not pro-freedom.” Yin said he voted against the legislation because it seemed to target one specific Wyoming business. “I think we all know that this is a bill that only targets one institution in the entire state, which is unfortunate that we’re passing bills that only target one exact place,” Yin said. “I don’t like doing that.” The bill passed on a vote of 6-1. Rep. Clarence Styvar, R-Cheyenne, was excused from the meeting. Abortion pills Freedom Caucus member Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, is the sponsor of House Bill 159, “Protecting water from chemical abortion waste,” a bill that would make drug manufacturers liable for any abortion pill chemical waste found in Wyoming water. “This bill … does not prohibit abortion,” Bear said. “It is focused on protecting the life and health of the mother, as well as the public.” Bear said an unpublished study, funded by Pew Research and provided by Students for Life of America, an anti-abortion organization, found that endocrine-disrupting chemicals in potable city water, specifically from abortion pills, are high in concentration. “So a 154-pound person drinking three liters of water a day for a period of about 280 days, would have ingested enough chemicals to have an abortion,” Bear said. Rep. John Bear (R-Gillette) sits at his desk in the Wyoming House of Representatives during the 2023 legislative session. (Megan Lee Johnson/WyoFile) This was the only study Bear referred to during public testimony, but it hasn’t been made available to the public yet. Bear told the WTE via a text message “that should happen soon.” However, testimony from medical experts and the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality contradicted Bear’s testimony. Dr. Hinkle provided the committee with a letter from the Food and Drug Administration dated Jan. 15, 2025, to the Students for Life of America, regarding the unpublished study. On Nov. 15, 2022, Students for Life petitioned the FDA to require prescribers of mifepristone, an abortion pill, to include a medical waste bag and catch kit with mifepristone prescriptions. The FDA denied the petition in its letter to the pro-life organization. “The Petition offers only conjecture that remnants of Mifepristone in the nation’s water system are ‘causing unknown harm to citizens and animals alike,’” the FDA stated in its letter. “Specifically, the Petition provides no evidence showing that bodily fluid from patients who have used mifepristone (a one-time, single-dose drug product) is causing harm to the nation’s aquatic environment.” DEQ Water Quality Administrator Jennifer Zygmunt said she wasn’t aware of any approved methods for detecting chemical waste directly linked to abortion pills. “I do think it’s unlikely that we would detect these abortion drug chemicals in the water sampling,” Zygmunt said. She said this is due to multiple factors, including infrequent use of the drug, low amounts of the drug used in a given population and the significant dilution that would occur. “I’m not familiar with this report that Rep. Bear spoke to,” Zygmunt said. “We would certainly like to see a copy of that and help evaluate that data and see if other communities are finding detectable amounts in water.” Rep. Ken Clouston, R-Gillette, voted against it, saying this bill, which is over 20 pages long, should be studied during the Legislature’s off-season, formally known as the interim. “This is probably the first pro life bill that I’m really hesitant on,” Clouston said. “These medications are used for so many other things. I don’t know how we’re going to actually determine where some of these drugs are coming from.” The bill passed committee on a vote of 5-2, with Styvar excused. The post Abortion restrictions pass through House panel with no questions from members on public testimony appeared first on WyoFile .