Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, taking away the constitutional right to abortion, voters in seven states have approved amending their state constitutions to protect abortion access. And Nevada could be next.
Abortion is already legal up to 24 weeks into a pregnancy in Nevada thanks to a 1990 referendum that affirmed state statutes on abortion. But Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom PAC wants to go even further by putting a question on the November 2024 ballot that would establish constitutional protection for abortion and for “reproductive freedom” in general.
“There’s statutory protections on the books, meaning that our laws related to abortion in the state can only be changed by a vote of the people. But state constitutional protections are even stronger,” explains Caroline Mello Roberson, director of state campaigns with Reproductive Freedom for All.
Reproductive Freedom for All is one of the organizations in the coalition that makes up Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom PAC. The group on September 14 initially filed a Notice of Intent to circulate a petition for a ballot initiative. The ballot initiative would ask whether a new section should be added to the state constitution saying that “every individual has a fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which entails the right to make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy, including, without limitation, prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, vasectomy, tubal ligation, abortion, abortion care, management of a miscarriage and infertility care.”
But the coalition has hit a roadblock. Weeks after filing the Notice of Intent to circulate a petition, a PAC called the Coalition for Parents and Children sued to block the ballot question. Carson City District Court Judge James Russell ruled in their favor, arguing that Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom’s ballot initiative was too broad for a single ballot question.
“We are appealing that decision to the [Nevada] Supreme Court, which we’re hoping that we get a court date some time in early January,” Mello Roberson says.
In the event that the ballot initiative doesn’t get a ruling in such a timely manner, her coalition has filed a “backup” Notice of Intent to circulate a petition. That alternative petition narrows down the subject to just abortion rather than all reproductive rights.
The petition to get the constitutional amendment on the ballot would need to get 103,000 signatures from Nevada’s four congressional districts by June 26, Mello Roberson says. If they’re successful with that, the question would appear on the November 2024 ballot and, if it gets a majority vote of the people, will appear again on the ballot in 2026.
There is also an effort in the Legislature to amend the state constitution with the right to “reproductive freedom.” Senate Joint Resolution 7, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzarro and 39 other Democrats, passed through both houses of the Legislature and would need to pass through the Legislature again in 2025 and then go before voters on the 2026 general election ballot in order for the amendment to be made.
“There’s two ways to amend the state constitution. One is to gather signatures and have two votes of the people consecutively. The other is to have two consecutive votes of the state Legislature, and then one vote of the people,” Mello Roberson explains.
Mello Roberson has been campaigning in Nevada since 2016. She says Nevada has taken on abortion patients from other states that have banned or restricted abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
“I have been mobilizing and activating Nevadans for reproductive freedom for the past seven years. And this year, it is more important than ever, because of what happened in 2022 with the Supreme Court overturning a 50-year constitutionally protected right. That has wreaked havoc all over the country, including in places like Nevada because we’re surrounded by states that, unfortunately, are going against the will of the American people and restricting access to abortion,” she says.
Since Roe was overturned, more than a dozen states have enacted near-total bans on abortion and seven states have banned abortion at six to 18 weeks of pregnancy.
“Part of the reason we’re putting a constitutional amendment forward is because we know that we need to actually expand access to care in our state to ensure that Nevadans and folks that come here can continue to access care.”
Nevada is not the only state to have a constitutional amendment in the works to protect abortion. Ballot questions are already set to appear on 2024 ballots New York and Maryland, and advocates are pushing to get it on the ballot in neighboring Arizona.
LOCAL COMPANY FIGHTING FOR ABORTION PILL ACCESS
The abortion pill, which is actually a combination of mifepristone followed by misoprostol, is used in more than half of abortions in the U.S. In 2021, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it would permanently allow the pill to be dispensed by mail. But that rule and additional rules that made the drug easier to access are now at stake in the Supreme Court, which will determine how the abortion pill can be accessed even in states where abortion is legal.
Originally approved by the FDA in 2000, mifepristone has been found by the agency to be safer than Viagra and penicillin. But a newly formed coalition of anti-abortion doctors represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom (a conservative legal group that had a hand in the Dobbs case that resulted in the overturning of Roe) sued the FDA in November 2022 claiming that the agency failed to follow scientific and legal protocols for safety when it approved mifepristone.
The high court announced on December 13 that it will take up the cases FDA vs. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine and Danco Laboratories vs. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. This comes after the Biden administration and mifepristone maker Danco Laboratories asked the Supreme Court to take it up following the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ ruling that would have removed FDA rules that made mifepristone easier to access. Those rules include allowing the drug to be taken at 10 weeks of pregnancy instead of seven, allowing it to be dispensed by mail, and requiring one in-person visit with a doctor instead of three. (The Fifth Circuit’s ruling never went into effect after Justice Samuel Alito in April granted requests for an emergency stay of the ruling.)
Justices will hear oral arguments early next year with a ruling due by the end of June 2024.
Las Vegas company GenBioPro, which manufactures generic mifepristone, has filed an amicus brief in the case, warning of “severe” consequences if the lower court’s ruling is allowed to stand.
Skye Perryman, CEO of Democracy Forward, which is GenBioPro’s legal counsel, says the ruling would be harmful to patients across the U.S., and would undermine the FDA’s authority when it comes to approving drugs.
“We’ve seen a number of concerning trends where both extreme special interest groups, like the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine in the Fifth Circuit case, as well as extreme politicians at times have sought to politicize the FDA to undermine its scientific judgment,” Perryman tells the Weekly. “Congress made it clear that it is the FDA, and the FDA alone that is to make scientific judgments about the regulations and availability of drugs.”
Access to abortion across the U.S. is being formed by these legal battles playing out in all rungs of the judicial system. And after Supreme Court Justices said they would leave abortion laws to the states, they are now in the position again of deciding major cases that will affect abortion access in all states.
Mello Roberson says rural Nevadans especially stand to lose access to abortion as well as miscarriage management. (Mifepristone and misoprostol are also used to treat miscarriages.)
“Especially in our state, [it] is absolutely factually true here that we have people who live far away from cities … who [would] have to then travel in order to access a medication that their doctors have prescribed for them,” she says.
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