Senate Majority Leader to Introduce Constitutional Amendment to Protect Abortion Rights, Reproductive Freedom
For Immediate Release: March 16, 2023
Carson City, NV — Today, Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro will introduce a bill that would adopt protections for reproductive freedom into the state constitution. The bill includes protections for abortion care in addition to a person’s right to obtain birth control, prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, vasectomy and tubal ligation, miscarriage management, and infertility care.
The effort to codify protections for reproductive freedom into Nevada’s state constitution is helmed by Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro and the Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom Coalition, lead by Planned Parenthood Votes Nevada and NARAL Pro-Choice Nevada, and comes on the heels of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and the subsequent attacks on sexual and reproductive health care that are currently occurring in state legislatures and at the federal level.
If passed during the 2023 and 2025 legislative sessions, the amendment would appear on the 2026 general election ballot.
Statement of Nicole Cannizzaro, Senate Majority Leader and bill Sponsor:
“The Supreme Court failed Nevadans when it upended fifty years of law to overturn Roe v. Wade. In light of that decision, Nevadans deserve an opportunity to decide for themselves whether to enshrine reproductive freedoms into our state constitution. Those freedoms go beyond seeking an abortion and include access to birth control, pre and postnatal care, and infertility treatments, among others. With this amendment, Nevadans will have the ability to establish firm constitutional limits on government overreach into private medical decisions, leaving them between patients and doctors where they belong."
Statement of Lindsey Harmon, Executive Director, Planned Parenthood Votes Nevada:
“After the Supreme Court overturned federal protections for abortion rights last summer, anti-abortion state legislatures, judges and activists have been working overtime to enact cruel abortion bans and other restrictions on sexual and reproductive health care.
With this constitutional amendment we are saying enough is enough. Nevadans don’t want anti-abortion elected officials and judges making our health care decisions for us, so we’re taking the issue to the voters to make sure that our abortion rights and reproductive freedoms are protected in the state constitution no matter what for generations to come.”
Caroline Mello Roberson, NARAL Pro-Choice America Southwest Regional Director:
“Nevadans support reproductive freedom — we proved that in the 1970s, again in the 1990s, and then again in 2019 when we passed landmark protections for abortion access. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, we must dream even bigger and fill in the gaps in abortion access so we can meet the needs of Nevadans and those coming here seeking care. NARAL Pro-Choice Nevada and our 48,000 members will be rolling up our sleeves to make sure that our most fundamental freedoms are protected in the state constitution, no matter what.”
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