A Wyoming federal judge imposed financial penalties of nearly $300,000 on a jailed woman in the state who previously committed arson that targeted an abortion clinic that’s since become the state’s only operating facility that provides such procedures.
Defendant Lorna Green was given a sentence of five years of incarceration prior to the fines. The earlier arson targeted an institution called Wellspring Health Access and significantly delayed a planned opening at the site. Most of the money that Green will need to pay will go towards an insurance company implicated in the situation, with additional amounts for the owner of the affected building and the founder/president of the impacted health care organization. Ryan Semerad, an attorney for Green, reportedly didn’t file opposition to the fines as originally requested from the judge by prosecutors.
Per the Associated Press, which had a statement from Semerad looking forward to Green’s eventual release from prison, Green was not known as an anti-abortion activist prior to the incident. She pleaded guilty in the eventual criminal case against her.
Abortion looks set to remain a substantial issue heading into next year’s elections across the United States, with Republicans in positions of state power — including in Wyoming — pursuing new restrictions on the procedure despite the consistent findings in surveys of the public that majorities are in favor of access to abortion clearly more extensive than the GOP’s ideal.
Court challenges over the availability of mifepristone, which is a prescription drug used in abortions conducted via medication, recently arrived at the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to consider disputes about specific expansions made by federal health authorities to allowed uses for the drug. The court left alone an earlier authorization from federal authorities for the medication to be used at all, preserving even further a baseline level of access.
