Some women are traveling hundreds of miles to access abortion care in the Mountain West because of state bans.
Last year, more than 4,000 out-of-staters came to Colorado, and many others went to New Mexico or Nevada.
But some are going to more unexpected places — like conservative Wyoming.
State data shows that 216 women came to Wyoming for abortions in 2023. That’s more than six times the number of women that came in 2021, before Roe v. Wade was overturned.
“I had a patient from Arizona. I had one for Texas. I had a couple from Utah,” said Jackson OB/GYN Giovannina Anthony.
But she said most of her traveling patients came to western Wyoming from neighboring Idaho, which has one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country.
Anthony said others who came from farther out happened to be in Jackson for a vacation and needed the service.
Access has actually expanded in Wyoming in recent years with Just The Pill providing abortion pills by mail in the state, and Wellspring Health Access opening.
That central Wyoming office, in Casper, caters to other populations, partly because it’s the only place to get a procedural abortion in the state.
“Since we've been open, we've seen patients come to us from 18 states across the nation,” Wellspring Health Access President Julie Burkhart said via email. “Outside of serving Wyomingites, we see the second largest patent volume from South Dakota.”
Anthony said these women see a checkerboard of regulations and decide the best place to go.
“They'll look at, ‘Where do I have friends? Where do I have family? Where do I have some support? Where do I have a flight?’” Anthony said.
Wyoming also has abortion bans on the books, but they’re currently blocked in the courts. If those ever go into effect, many women in the West would have to travel even farther, like to Colorado, which remains a hot spot for abortion travelers.
The number of out-of-state patients coming to Colorado spiked in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, according to state data. That number kept trending upwards in 2023, and out of the more than 4,000 travelers, about two-thirds came from Texas.
Despite having some access to abortion in Wyoming, nearly 250 Wyomingites still traveled to Colorado for care last year. About 120 people came from New Mexico.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
