Abortion Reporting: Wyoming (2023)

Wyoming’s 2023 abortion report was published online by the Wyoming Department of Health in June 2024. The report contained an updated abortion total for 2022 (540 abortions), and noted that additional abortion forms were received after the publication of Wyoming’s 2022 abortion report.

Statistics and Changes in Wyoming Abortions, 2022-2023

The report does not include information on Planned Parenthood’s Wyoming abortion market share, but Planned Parenthood operates no abortion centers in Wyoming.

Abortion Totals and Trends

2023 marked the fourth full year of reporting since Wyoming’s current abortion reporting law went into effect. In 2023, there were 573 abortions reported, an increase of 6.1% from 2022. Drug-induced abortions decreased by 12% and composed 83% of the 2023 total (Fig. 1). The Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI) estimates that Wyoming’s 2023 abortion rate was 5.2 abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age (Fig. 2).¹ As of November 2024, 21 states had released abortion statistics for 2023, with 9 states showing that abortions had increased.

State Report Summary

In 2023, the state did not report the number of abortions by women’s residency status as it had in years past. Forty-four percent of the abortions were performed on women ages 24 and younger, 40% on women ages 25 to 34, and 17% on women ages 35 and older.

Fifty percent were obtained by women with no previous live births, compared to 18% by women with one prior live birth and 32% by women with two or more previous births. Seventy-three percent were performed on women who had never had an abortion before. Twenty percent were performed on women with one previous abortion, and 7% on women with two or more previous abortions.

Ninety-four percent of the abortions reported in Wyoming occurred at 10 weeks of gestation or earlier, with 53% reported at six weeks or earlier and 41% performed between seven and 10 weeks. Five percent of the abortions were performed at 11 weeks or later and eight abortions were performed at unknown gestational ages. One unknown complication was reported.²

In previous years, Wyoming’s annual report differentiated between the number of abortions performed at a brick-and-mortar establishment or via telehealth. However, the 2022 and 2023 annual reports do not contain this information.

A new abortion center opened in the state in 2023 which performs drug-induced abortions up to 11 weeks of gestation and surgical abortions up to 24 weeks of gestation. For this reason, and for the first time since the state started reporting public-facing abortion data in 2020, a significant number of surgical abortions were performed in Wyoming in 2023. In 2023, 17% of Wyoming abortions were surgical  while 83% were drug-induced. For a breakdown of the procedures used in Wyoming abortions over the past few years, see the following table:

Unlike in years past, the 2023 abortion report reported abortions by the type of facility where the abortion was performed. Sixty-nine percent of the abortions were performed in an office while 30% were performed at abortion centers. Five abortions were performed at unknown locations.

Legislative Changes

As CLI has previously summarized, Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon signed two bills into law in March 2023. One bill, SF0109, would have prohibited the administration of drug-induced abortion in Wyoming with exceptions for the life and physical health of the mother, as well as sexual assault and incest. Governor Gordon also signed HB0152 into law in March 2023, which would have prohibited abortion in all cases except those listed in the preceding sentence. In June 2023, however, both laws were blocked by a county judge before they were set to go into effect on July 1, 2023. In April 2024, the Wyoming Supreme Court refused to judge the constitutionality of both laws and asked the county judge to answer constitutional questions for the state Supreme Court via summary judgement. Abortion continues to be legal in Wyoming with no effective gestational limits as the state’s viability law contains exceptions for the health of the mother so broad that abortions can be performed for virtually any reason.

State Ranking

In CLI’s updated 2024 evaluation of abortion reporting across the country, Wyoming’s reporting was ranked as tied for 27^th best out of 52 reporting areas. Wyoming could improve its abortion reports by publishing more of the information it collects, including the demographics of women obtaining abortions in the state. Wyoming could also require that any abortion complications be reported by the healthcare providers who treat them, as some other states do. Lastly, the state could resume reporting the number of abortions performed by a woman’s state of residence as well as the number of abortions performed at brick-and-mortar centers versus the number performed via telemedicine.

1. National rates were calculated by the Guttmacher Institute. Wyoming rates were calculated by CLI using the following formula: (total number of abortions performed in Wyoming ÷ number of resident women ages 15-44 [based on most recent population estimates]) x 1,000. Rates may differ slightly from previous CLI articles due to revised population estimates. Population estimates were obtained from the CDC WONDER database. Estimates for 2005-2009 are intercensal estimates of the July 1 resident population. Estimates for 2010-2019 are Vintage 2020 postcensal estimates of the July 1 resident population. Estimates for 2020-2022 are Vintage 2022 postcensal estimates of the July 1 resident population. Estimates were produced by the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics. Rates for 2023 were calculated using the Vintage 2022 postcensal estimates because 2023 population estimates have not yet been released by the CDC.
2. This data was collected in a non-systematic and non-verifiable way and cannot be used to calculate either an accurate abortion mortality rate or an accurate abortion complication rate.

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