John Locher / AP
Lindsey Harmon, President, Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom, speaks during a news conference by Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom, Monday, May 20, 2024, in Las Vegas. Abortion access advocates in Nevada said Monday they’ve submitted twice the number of petition signatures needed to qualify for a ballot measure aimed at enshrining what they term reproductive rights in the state constitution.
Wednesday, June 26, 2024 | 2 a.m.
View more of the Sun's opinion section
In Alabama, the state attorney general has threatened to use conspiracy laws to prosecute those who help fund or arrange out-of -state travel for women seeking refuge from Alabama’s near-total abortion ban. In Indiana, a doctor almost lost her license because she provided abortion care to a 10-year-old rape victim. In Texas, a woman was sued by her abusive ex for seeking an abortion.
In a case now pending before the Supreme Court, Idaho is arguing that its abortion ban should override the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. This a federal law requires any hospital with an emergency room to provide stabilizing treatment to any person experiencing a medical emergency. Idaho’s ban on abortion conflicts with the federal law as well as with doctors who want to save their patients’ lives.
This is post-Dobbs America, where there is no constitutional right to abortion and states are free to revive arcane laws from the 1800s — before women could vote — or pass newly concocted bans that have a chilling effect on health care providers and threaten women seeking care.
The Dobbs decision, handed down two years ago this week, made every American less free.
The court majority has abrogated individual Americans’ liberty interests in favor of a Dixiecratic return to state sovereignty to regulate the bodies and personal decisions of women.
If faced with another Donald Trump presidency, we would be forced to fight executive action by flipping the perverted states’ rights position to protect as many women as we can where we can.
If Trump is elected, he can threaten abortion access by enforcing old laws and taking new executive actions, even without Congress.
For example, Trump can enforce the Comstock Act, a 151-year-old law that criminalizes using the mail to send lewd material, and that could include drugs or tools designed for abortion. That’s not hyperbole: Project 2025’s plan proposes the revival of an 1873 law to mandate how to regulate modern medicine. The prospect of being arrested, losing the legal ability to practice medicine and a host of other collateral consequences pose too great a risk.
Despite the Supreme Court’s procedural ruling on mifepristone, Trump can force the Food and Drug Administration to create new restrictions, use the rule-making powers to create new barriers and stifle Medicaid funding for health care systems that don’t obey him.
Nevada is a pivotal swing state in the November election, and it is one of a handful of states whose voters will consider enshrining the right to abortion into the state constitution. These amendments will be a key legal tool in the next battleground of reproductive rights litigation.
Nevadans have a rich history of protecting personal liberties. You are crucial in this election. Protecting the rights of women in Nevada will advance the defense of reproductive freedom throughout the country. I hope we can knock on doors, talk to voters, and kick some dust into the gears of the Trump machine.
Maggy Krell is a California deputy attorney general and candidate for California Assembly District 6.
