Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, left, D-N.Y., speaks during a roundtable on women’s reproductive rights at a Biden-Harris field office Thursday, June 20, 2024. Moderator Maria Nieto-Orta listens right.
Friday, June 21, 2024 | 2 a.m.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gave a simple answer when she was asked what was at stake for women in November in the election between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
“For women and gender diverse people, it is life and death,” said Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., during a discussion about reproductive rights Thursday in Las Vegas. Ocasio-Cortez later appeared in downtown Las Vegas for a rally to support Biden’s reelection campaign. “It’s not hyperbole. It’s reality.”
A preview of life for women with the Trump administration calling the shots is evident in states with six-week abortion bans, she said. Those were enacted after the Supreme Court’s overturning in 2022 of the landmark Roe v. Wade case.
“In my early 20s, if you looked at me funny my period was late,” she said. “That is normal life. You are stressed out and not eating right. A six-week ban, in my view, is a total ban.”
The discussion featured Las Vegas women discussing obstacles to obtaining reproductive health care.
Maria Nieto Orta, the president of Young Democrats of Nevada, told the group that when she obtained an abortion six weeks and three days into a pregnancy, she couldn’t help thinking about women in other states who were stripped of that right and forced to travel out of state for care.
“Two years ago, I had an abortion,” she said. “My why didn’t matter. All I know is I didn’t want to have a kid. … I told my mom, I could barely take care of myself.”
Ocasio-Cortez said the number of medical professionals electing to go into OB-GYN care has been cut in half since the Supreme Court overturned Roe two years ago this weekend. The reason: They are afraid to face criminal charges for doing their job.
Alexia Rivera-Perez, a panelist during the discussion, is a recent graduate of Nevada State University and preparing to enter medical school. Her desire is to provide reproductive care to all women, which the group said was vitally important because she is a Latina and women need to be seen by medical professionals who look like them and have similar experiences.
“Women in our community can’t be scared to make the choice,” she said. “These days, even having a miscarriage is criminal. … As an OB-GYN I shouldn’t be scared to save a patient’s life. I am going to ensure the women in our community are protected.”
Nevadans in November will have a chance to give more protections to women.
Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom is close to getting an initiative on the ballot that would codify the right to an abortion into the state constitution. The campaign in three months gathered 200,000 signatures — including at least 25,000 from each of Nevada’s four congressional districts, as required by law — to be put on the ballot.
The secretary of state must verify the signatures before issuing a “notice of qualification,” to put the question officially up for a vote in November.
If the measure passes in November, the amendment would then again appear on the 2026 general election ballot.
Nevada already has a voter-affirmed statute that guarantees a woman’s right to an abortion up to 24 weeks.
The campaign office in Spring Valley where the event was had plenty of signs plastered to the wall encouraging supporters to “stop Trump’s attack on health care.” And Ocasio-Cortez says, they’ll do so while advocating for all Nevadans.
“This state doesn’t leave people behind. This is a state that fights for everybody.”
That was reaffirming for the women, who Ocasio-Cortez said bravely shared their stories. One woman said she waited nearly 10 years to share the story of how her pregnancy ended.
“Sometimes the stories that are hardest to tell, or the stories that require the extra bit of bravery to share, those are the stories that are most powerful,” said Laura Campbell, a panelist who had a live-saving abortion and is the director of actions at Nevada NOW. “I will tell my story until the end of time, until everyone has the health care I had. No one should be denied.”
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