What my crystal ball says about Wyoming's health care fight

I can't read tea leaves. I do have a crystal ball. And I have a few predictions. But first, this. A few MAGA Republicans don't trust Gov. Mark Gordon's attorney general to represent their extremist views before Wyoming courts considering the future of choice. They want to intervene. Interfere is a better word.

Chuck Gray, recently sworn-in secretary of state, is already bored in his new job. Now, he wants to do Gordon's. After all, once he arrived in the office that oversees elections and found there was nothing fraudulent about Wyoming's, he's been twiddling his thumbs.

Along comes the abortion fight. He and Chip Neiman, the majority leader of the state House, convinced themselves that to take Wyoming backward half a century, they must be allowed to back up Wyoming's AG.

They want to intervene in the legal fight before the Teton County district court. To convince the court they should be allowed to meddle in the case, they have asserted Gordon's AG does not adequately represent them.

Neither is an attorney. Both are extremists. Here's hoping they will be allowed to intervene. The Chip and Chuck Show will give the people of Wyoming a clear picture of how far the radical right wants to go in controlling our personal health care decisions.

When pre-Trump MAGA Republicans, i.e., "Tea Partiers," tried to make sure Barack Obama and federal bureaucrats couldn't make our health care decisions, they wrote a law assuring those same political extremists could not make our health care decisions.

Article 1, Section 38 of Wyoming's Constitution protects a woman's right to choose. It says, "Each competent adult shall have the right to make his or her own health care decisions." The extremists attempted to get around it by defining abortions to not be health care. It was like defining dogs to be a cats. The judge called it "undue government infringement." Others would use the word "nonsense." All of which takes me back to my predictions.

First, the Wyoming Supreme Court will uphold the lower court's decision.

Second, the big government conspiracists will not give up in their religious crusade to put them in charge of making women's health care choices.

They'll go back to their boiling cauldron and concoct new constitutional language to overturn the Supreme Court's decision. It will be the most radical anti-choice language proposed anywhere. It will be put on the Wyoming ballot for the voters to decide.

When that happens depends on the pace at which the current case is decided. If the Supreme Court's decision comes before the end of 2023, we may be voting on the anti-choice proposal in November 2024. If the court takes longer, the statewide vote may not occur until 2026.

Third prediction: The voters will reject the proposed constitutional amendment, and, at the same election, they will replace many of the most radical lawmakers supporting the measure.

One last prediction: Article 1, Section 38 will prevent the MAGA folks from interfering with a parent's right to decide what health care their children can obtain.

Wyoming's Orwellian-named "Freedom Caucus" has no imagination of their own. So, in 2023, the national MAGA network funneled them proposals making it a felony to prescribe hormone blockers, hormone therapy or gender-affirming surgery to those under 18.

Another bill would have stripped health care professionals of their licenses for providing trans youth gender-affirming surgery or other gender-affirming therapy. They proposed prohibiting insurance companies from covering this care. Both were defeated, but are still breathing. It will be Article 1, Section 38 that finally drives a stake through their heart.

The bills blatantly violate Wyoming's constitutional assurance, which reads, "The parent, guardian or legal representative of any other natural person shall have the right to make health care decisions for that person." It is said that those who think they have a crystal ball end up eating ground glass, but somehow it seems a straightforward reading of the Wyoming Constitution is the gift that keeps on giving - at least to rational, freedom-loving people.

Rodger McDaniel lives in Laramie and is the pastor at Highlands Presbyterian Church in Cheyenne. His email address is [email protected].