Guest column: Reproductive freedom under attack again

Pennsylvania just became the latest of far too many states trying to ban abortion before many women even know they’re pregnant.

While its governor, Tom Wolf, pledged to veto any abortion ban after anti-choice legislators introduced the bill, there is a troubling trend afoot. Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio all passed similarly extreme legislation this year.

Folks who haven’t been paying close attention may be wondering: Why 2019? Why did so many politicians choose this year to try to force women backward to the 1960s? The answer is that 2019 represents the culmination of a more than 40-year campaign by anti-choice activists to shift the balance of the courts with a menacing, overarching goal: end the constitutional right to legal abortion.

The anti-choice movement was given a huge gift in the election of President Donald Trump, who is committed to overturning Roe v. Wade and explicitly nominates judges hostile to Roe.

After Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination secured a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, anti-choice extremists were willing to acknowledge their goal: banning abortion nationwide and eventually making the procedure “unthinkable” in all circumstances. Then they activated anti-choice state legislatures to ban abortion.

Nevada, despite our long history of protecting and respecting reproductive freedom, is not immune from the anti-choice activists’ focus. The recent nomination of former Nevada Solicitor General Lawrence VanDyke to serve on the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals points to this dynamic. With this nomination, the White House is ignoring Nevadans, our legal community and the bipartisan commission that was being established by Nevada Sens. Catherine Cortez-Masto and Jacky Rosen. Instead, the Trump administration selected a nominee straight from the anti-choice movement’s playbook.

VanDyke served under former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, an anti-choice extremist and failed gubernatorial candidate. Unsurprisingly, Laxalt, who on the campaign trail said he’d “look into” rolling back our voter-affirmed right to choose, praised VanDyke’s nomination on social media.

Why was VanDyke, who has zero experience as a judge, tapped to serve on one of the highest courts in our nation? Simple: He follows the Trumpian activist model for judges and is in lockstep with the agenda to strip away reproductive freedom and undo Roe v. Wade.

For example, VanDyke, like Kavanaugh, is active in the conservative, anti-choice Federalist Society. (VanDyke has been a speaker at Federalist Society events, and served on the Federalist Society’s Religious Liberty Practice Group Executive Committee for over a decade.) The Federalist Society is led by Leonard Leo, an anti-choice activist who is heavily involved in selecting Trump’s court nominees. He has been outspoken in his anti-choice views, calling abortion “an act of force” and “a threat to human life,” and serves as co-chairman of Students for Life, a group whose mission is to “abolish abortion.”

In addition to associating with anti-choice extremists, VanDyke has a record of opposing reproductive freedom. As Montana solicitor general before coming to Nevada, VanDyke co-wrote an amicus brief in support of Arizona’s unconstitutional abortion ban. The brief argued that Roe v. Wade and subsequent cases affirming the constitutional right to abortion should be “revisited.”

So, what can we do about this? For starters, we can caucus. We have the First in the West caucus Feb. 22, and as such, we are uniquely positioned to influence who is challenging Trump in 2020. Get informed about where the candidates stand on reproductive freedom and hold them accountable to protecting our freedom to make our own decisions about pregnancy. Ask them about nominating justices who will respect this fundamental freedom. Ask them what they plan to do to reverse the damage waged against women by the megalomaniac in the White House. And finally, remember what some voters in 2016 seemingly forgot: Our right to choose may not be written on the ballot, but it is very much on the line. Vote like it’s all on the line, because when it comes to your right to reproductive freedom, it is.

Caroline Mello Roberson is state director of NARAL Pro-Choice Nevada.