In Nevada, a campaign supporting a ballot initiative to establish a constitutional right to an abortion submitted more than 200,000 signatures on May 20, 2024. If enough signatures are found valid, the initiative will appear on the ballot on Nov. 5, 2024.
Voters in 12 states could see abortion measures on the ballot in 2024. Measures are certified in four of those 12 states—Colorado, Florida, Maryland, and South Dakota. Measures have been proposed in eight states. A constitutional amendment in New York was removed from the ballot on May 7 following a ruling from a state supreme court justice regarding the legislative procedure of the amendment; however, the New York attorney general said she would appeal the decision.
The initiative would establish the right to an abortion in the Nevada Constitution until fetal viability, except when it is medically necessary to “protect the life or health of the pregnant patient.”
In Nevada, abortion is currently legal until 24 weeks of pregnancy. In 1990, Nevada voters approved Question 7, which legalized abortion until 24 weeks, and prohibited the state legislature from amending or repealing the law unless it was placed on the ballot.
Lindsey Harmon, president of Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom, the campaign supporting the initiative, said, “We’ve seen a lot of legislators in a lot of other states push abortion bans against the will of the people and so we want to make sure that we’re doing everything we can in the state of Nevada, as well as we want people in the state of Nevada to have an opportunity to vote on this. Take it out of the elected people’s hands and return this vote to the vote of the people.”
Melissa Clement, the president of Nevada Right to Life, an organization that came out in opposition to the proposed amendment, said, “As a woman, nothing makes me angrier than Democrats taking one of the most difficult and traumatic decisions a woman can make and using it for political fodder. Scaring women. It’s despicable.”
Following the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2022, which overturned Roe v. Wade, seven abortion-related measures appeared on the ballot. In 2022, there were six ballot measures addressing abortion — the most on record for a single year. Three—in California, Michigan, and Vermont—proposed enacting state constitutional rights to abortion, and each one was approved. The most recent abortion-related ballot measure to be passed by voters was Ohio Issue 1, which voters approved in Nov. 2023.
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