Supreme Court

As the U.S. Supreme Court considers a challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act, several states in the Mountain West are preparing their own laws to protect tribal rights should the court deem ICWA unconstitutional.

The Wyoming Senate killed a bill that would give the governor the right to strike an agreement with tribes on treaty-based hunting, fishing and gathering rights.

The Wyoming House floor will consider a bill that would give the Wyoming governor the right to strike an agreement with tribes on treaty based hunting, fishing and gathering rights.

ICWA was passed in 1978. It keeps tribes of Indigenous children in the know of family court proceedings to maintain families and communities. Before ICWA, a high percentage of Indigenous children were being removed from their tribal affiliations and placed in families outside their culture.

After the Roe v. Wade decision where the U.S. Supreme Court revoked abortion rights, the Northern Arapaho are asking the Wyoming legislature to protect Indigenous children as the US Supreme Court looks at the Indian Child Welfare Act.

The Joint Judiciary Committee is continuing to work on the transfer of court supervised treatment programs from the Department of Health to the Wyoming Supreme Court.Some hope handing over the substance abuse court program’s oversight to the judicial branch will make treatment courts more effective--since the Supreme Court is directly involved with these programs.

The U.S. Supreme Court has handed abortion decisions to states. That means state supreme courts will likely have to review what abortion rights people have under state constitutions. In the Mountain West, there are already several lawsuits about abortion laws that these state courts have to review. That includes one suit in Idaho and another in Utah, which has led to a temporary stay of that law going into effect.

A new report shows the number of abortions in the U.S. rose significantly in recent years, and increases were seen in many Mountain West states – including some that are poised to ban abortion.

According to abortion advocates, Wyoming is already a state with very limited access to abortion services. A Jackson clinic is currently the only facility that provides abortion services in the state. Women in eastern Wyoming already had to travel outside of the state for abortion services.

Wellspring Health Access clinic planned to open in mid-June but the building was set on fire at the end of May. This delayed the opening, but even with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the clinic plans to open in a couple of months. They are considering going to court over the trigger law though.