Harris campaign events in Nevada highlight dangers of restricting abortion, push for increased access

Texas resident Ryan Hamilton will never forget lifting his unconscious wife up from their bathroom floor and speeding to the hospital.

Hamilton’s wife, Jess, experienced a miscarriage a week earlier and, Hamilton said, hadn’t received adequate treatment for her recovery because of his state’s strict abortion laws “pushing women to the brink of death.”

Her life was at risk, he said.

“Make no mistake, this disgraceful lack of care my wife endured was a direct result of Texas’ deadly new abortion laws and (former President) Donald Trump,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton joined reproductive rights advocates at a Harris for President campaign event Monday in Las Vegas to share his story and support Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court — bolstered by three of Trump’s conservative appointees — in 2022 overturned the 1972 Roe v. Wade decision, several Republican-controlled states like Texas have tightened abortion restrictions or imposed outright bans. The Dobbs decision overturned 50 years of legal precedent and dismissed the constitutional right to abortion that had been in place for 50 years, allowing states to determine whether abortion should be legal. Since the Dobbs ruling, Nevada — specifically Las Vegas — where abortions are legal through the initial 24 weeks of pregnancy — has become an “oasis” for those from nearby states seeking reproductive health care, said Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood.

The message Monday reiterated what was said at another Harris campaign Friday in Henderson.

“The path to freedom runs right through Nevada. It runs right through Las Vegas,” McGill Johnson said during the Henderson event.

McGill Johnson’s visit came as the Harris campaign launched a canvassing effort focused on reproductive justice rights. She said Nevada was the most important state in the nation this upcoming election because of its competitive races for president and U.S. Senate, and a ballot initiative to strengthen abortion access.

Nevada voters in November will decide whether the right to abortion becomes enshrined in the state constitution.

“I think it’s really important for us to understand just the kind of public health crisis that much of the country is in and why Nevada is such an oasis — why we have to protect it,” McGill Johnson said.

Voters in Nevada approved a 1990 ballot question allowing a physician to perform an abortion on a patient within the first 24 weeks of a pregnancy. The question further stated that the statute “will remain in effect and cannot be changed, except by a direct vote of the people.”

That means to change the law, opponents of abortion would have to launch a new statewide ballot initiative, collect the required number of signatures from registered voters across the state and then win a majority of votes in two successive general elections.

Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom launched a campaign in February to raise the bar higher. The group gathered the required signatures for a ballot question codifying the right to an abortion into the Nevada Constitution. That question will be on the ballot in November.

Republicans — at least in campaign messaging — aren’t promising a full federal abortion ban. The party platform, adopted this month at the Republican National Convention, leaves abortion access up to the individual states.

“After 51 years, because of us, that power has been given to the states and to a vote of the people. We will oppose late-term abortion, while supporting mothers and policies that advance prenatal care, access to birth control, and IVF (fertility treatments),” the platform reads.

Nevada GOP Chairman Michael McDonald said the people of Nevada have spoken about their stance on abortion through the 1990 legislation and that Trump wouldn’t be able to take that away as president.

“What they’re trying to do (in the Harris campaign) is they’re trying to scare females into voting on something that will never happen,” McDonald said. “The only way this law can be changed is by a vote of the people.”

McDonald’s stance doesn’t account for a potential national ban, and Democrats aren’t buying the rhetoric.

“He will tell you one day he won’t do it, the next afternoon that he will,” Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., said of Trump, who says he opposes a national ban. “So you have to look at actions and not words, and the actions are bragging about the Supreme Court that he put in place.”

McGill Johnson said improving abortion access on the federal level matters in states like Nevada because of how many extra people it serves and how this can overwhelm already busy care centers.

“When you have the 21 states that have bans and you’re asking the remaining states to absorb the needs of all 50 — that puts a lot of pressure on states that are able to provide in order to meet the needs and the surge,” McGill Johnson said. “The public health crisis is a crisis that was unnecessary. It is so completely out of touch with where the majority of Americans are on the issue.”

 

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