Since a partial abortion ban went into effect in Wyoming in early March, women have been leaving the state to seek care, traveling hours to Colorado and Montana.
Some worry there could be a permanent exodus from the state, and that could impact the workforce long term.
“People of childbearing age are leaving this state, and it's just gonna get worse with stuff like this,” said Janean Forsyth, who leads the nonprofit Chelsea’s Fund, which helps people access abortions in the state.
Wyoming’s new Human Heartbeat Act bans abortion when cardiac activity is detected. That’s typically around six weeks, when many people may not know they’re pregnant.
“Nothing about this bill promotes economic growth or stability,” Forsyth said.
A working paper from the nonprofit National Bureau of Economic Research shows that states with abortion bans may lose thousands of residents a year.
In many places, that includes doctors. In Idaho, home to one of the strictest abortion bans in the country, researchers found there are 35% fewer OB-GYNs than before the law went into effect.
Forsyth worries the same could happen in Wyoming, where there’s already an OB-GYN shortage.
But some lawmakers in Wyoming’s Republican supermajority disagree. They’re concerned about what the state’s aging population could mean for the economy.
“How do we get, like, a younger population and keep that younger population here?” asked state Sen. Evie Brennan (R-Cheyenne).
The former nurse said banning abortion is one piece.
“We're sending a message that children are important and that they're the future,” Brennan said.
In fact, the Human Heartbeat Act even directly says the state has a “compelling interest in providing for the state's future population and societal and economic security by promoting childbirth.”
This echoes pro-natalist rhetoric from President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
“I’ll be known as the fertilization president,” Trump said at a press conference, while promising to advance IVF.
“Let me say very simply, I want more babies in the United States of America,” said Vance at a 2025 March for Life rally.
The U.S.’s fertility rate, the number of babies per 1,000 women of reproductive age, is falling, which could mean not having enough people to care for an aging population or contribute to the economy.
But does banning abortion help? Probably not, according to John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health demographer Suzanne Bell.
“Imposing a ban on abortion is not going to transform the trajectory of a state's fertility patterns,” said Bell.
However, it could lead to a slight, short-term bump, like in Idaho in 2023. Bell’s research shows that the fertility rate there was 1.3% higher than what was expected without the ban.
“What that works out to in absolute terms is about 240 excess births,” Bell said, which she adds is significant in terms of fertility patterns.
But she said that doesn’t necessarily translate to more workers and economic growth. Those children would then have to grow up and decide to stay in the state and join the workforce.
According to the longrunning Turnaway Study out of the University of California, children born as a result of an abortion denial are more likely to live below the federal poverty level. That’s compared to children born from a later pregnancy to women who received an abortion to terminate a previous pregnancy.
Plus, women who are denied abortions are more likely to face economic insecurity than those who receive one. Other studies show women often leave the workplace or take lower positions when they can’t afford childcare.
“ I think that our pro-life movement has done a whole bunch of things to say each life is important,” said Sen. Brennan, the Wyoming lawmaker who’s also a mother of four.
“But we're not as good at putting in place, like, how do you care for that mother during pregnancy and how do you care for that mom and that baby or that young family that needs a little bit extra support?” she said.
Brennan said she hopes the Wyoming Legislature, churches, nonprofits and private groups have more robust conversations around children and other ways to support women and children, once courts weigh in on the new abortion law, which is now being challenged.
An emergency hearing that could block the partial ban and restore abortion access in Wyoming could happen any day. This comes after the state’s supreme court struck down two near-total abortion bans as unconstitutional earlier this year.
“Once we’ve heard from the courts, then I think we can take a step back and see, like, is this having [an] effect on our workforce?” Brennan said. “Is it really doing what we intended it to do?”
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 Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio, KJZZ in Arizona and NPR, with additional support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
