Congresswoman Dina Titus speaks about reproductive rights on the second anniversary of Roe v. Wade being overturned, in Las Vegas, Nevada on Monday, June 24, 2024.
Tuesday, June 25, 2024 | 2 a.m.
Dr. Austin Dennard, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Texas, discovered she was pregnant with her third child in June 2022.
But what was supposed to be a happy time turned into a nightmare when, at her second ultrasound appointment, she said it was revealed that her baby had acrania — a deadly condition where the fetus doesn’t develop a skull, which leaves brain tissue exposed to amniotic fluid.
The fetus was also diagnosed with anencephaly — a severe and fatal defect that can be dangerous to the mother as well — despite there still being a cardiac heartbeat.
Dennard remembers sitting in the office of her maternal fetal medicine specialist and sobbing as she realized that what was supposed to be her third child wouldn’t get a chance to live.
And yet, because of a newly legalized abortion ban in Texas, Dennard said she felt as if her pregnancy was not her own and instead was controlled by the state.
It was then that Dennard made the decision to travel thousands of miles outside of Texas — away from her family, friends and patients — to get an abortion out of state.
She detailed her story Monday in a Las Vegas appearance for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign.
“Because of Donald Trump and his extreme abortion ban that he unleashed, I was facing a situation which, in Texas law, I would be forced to carry this pregnancy regardless of the risk that it posed to my health and my life,” she said. “Every pregnancy has the potential to have complications — I as an OB-GYN know that — and I’m here to tell you, one of the most pro-choice states in this country — here — women will lose the right to choose as well.”
“And I know that every woman deserves to be able to make those decisions for herself with her doctor, and there is only one candidate in this race who knows that too, and that is Joe Biden,” Dennard continued.
Monday marked the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women Health Organization, in which the court overturned the landmark 1972 Roe v. Wade case that had protected a woman’s right to an abortion for 50 years. The ruling paved the way for limits in states such as Texas, which bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
More than 1 in 3 women now live in a state where abortion is banned, Dennard said. At least 25 million women live in states with abortion restrictions, according to The Associated Press.
It appears that 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, but it only protects such rights in the short term, Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., said at Monday’s event.
“If somebody starts telling you, ‘Oh, it’s already decided in Nevada,’ you remind them a little of the history. For the short term you’re OK, but what about your daughter or your granddaughter, you wanna have them have fewer rights than you have at this point? And that’s exactly the road we’re headed in,” Titus said.
Another speaker at the event, Nevada State Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, who is pregnant with her third child, recalled the morning two years ago when Roe v. Wade was officially overturned. Her first baby was almost a year old, and the family was hopeful to expand, she said.
Hearing that reproductive rights had been struck down federally was “so scary,” that Cannizzaro said she became angry and was determined to lead the charge to protect a woman’s right to choice. She’s now a leading proponent of codifying reproductive rights in the Nevada Constitution.
The women and other elected leaders at the Biden event were critical of Sam Brown, the “extremist” Republican nominee who is facing incumbent U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., in November.
Nevada Assemblywoman Daniele Monroe-Moreno, the chairwoman of the Nevada State Democratic Party, said candidates such as Brown were going to “make good on their word to implement a dangerous abortion ban” across the United States that would put Nevada’s reproductive rights at risk.
Titus urged voters to be wary of conservatives who want to leave abortion rights up to individual states, stressing that a woman’s right to an abortion shouldn’t be dependent on where they live.
Each woman encouraged audience members to hit the polling stations this fall with reproductive rights in mind, voting to not only reelect Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, but also secure a Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate.
Biden has indicated that he would not support a national abortion ban; Trump so far has said the issue should be left to the states, but his base, which includes evangelical Christians, have sought a national ban since the Dobbs decision.
“We’re living in a time when my daughters, my granddaughters had fewer rights than I did at their age and that’s because of Donald Trump and the three Supreme Court Justices that ripped away a woman’s right to make decisions about her own damn body,” Monroe-Moreno said. “I want to make it clear — perfectly clear — that what happens to women in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Louisiana or anywhere in our country affects women here in Nevada because injustice to women anywhere is a threat to women’s justice absolutely everywhere.”
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