Reproductive rights advocates urge Nevadans to vote for Harris and Question 6

With early voting starting Oct. 19 in Nevada, elected officials and advocates aim to keep reproductive rights on top of mind and remind voters that Nevada’s abortion protections are not immune to a national ban.

The Harris-Walz campaign’s Reproductive Freedom Bus Tour visited Nevada on Wednesday, with surrogates urging Nevadans to support Kamala Harris for president and to vote yes on Ballot Question 6, which would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.  

The bus stopped in Las Vegas on Wednesday and will be in Reno and Carson City over the weekend. Nevada Democratic Reps. Dina Titus and Susie Lee joined Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), reproductive rights advocate Hadley Duvall, and Maya Harris, the vice president’s sister, at Wednesday’s event. They emphasized the importance of reproductive rights and warned about Donald Trump’s plans for a ban abortion. 

“You know, Donald Trump had a town hall this morning on women’s issues. Did any of you manage to watch that? Could you believe he’s even talking about himself in women’s issues?” Titus said. “[He says] ‘women trust me because I’m their protector.’ How many of you think you’re protected by Donald Trump? How many of you want Donald Trump in the examining room when you go in there to make a decision about your body? But that’s exactly what you’ll get if he gets to be president.” 

While abortion is allowed up to 24 weeks of pregnancy in the state, Nevadans will get to vote on ballot question 6, which would add another layer of protection for abortion rights — although a national ban would override state protections. If the initiative passes with over 50% of the vote, Nevadans would have to approve it again in 2026 for it to take effect. 

“We’ve got to put it in the [state] constitution, and even that’s not solid, but it gives us a little more protection if they try to take it to court,” Titus said. “Women’s rights should not depend on geography. If they say ‘I want to leave it to the states,’ that means that they support the worst thing that the worst state has done — locking up people, can’t travel, going after doctors. That’s what leaving it to the states means.” 

Duvall, who is from Kentucky and shared her story as a survivor of sexual assault, urged Nevadans to vote to further protect abortion rights, especially as her home state has banned abortion with very limited exceptions after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. 

Ten years ago, at age 12, Duvall found out she had been impregnated by her step-father who’d been sexually abusing her since she was 5 years old. At the time, she was told she had options and received an abortion, and now she’s advocating “for the other Hadleys out there” — the tens of millions of women of reproductive age (15 to 44) who live in one of the 21 states with an abortion ban currently in effect.

“[Trump has] gone as far to say these abortion bans are a beautiful thing to watch. I’d like to ask him, he’s yet to answer, what is so beautiful about telling a 12-year-old child she must carry the baby of her stepfather who raped her?” Duvall said. “To tell a girl who has been robbed of her innocence of her childhood that you will now be taking her future away too? That’s inhumane.”

Maya Harris called the abortion bans across the country a “crisis,” especially with cases like Amber Nicole Thurman’s in Georgia. 

Thurman was a 28 year-old mom who sought an abortion across state lines in North Carolina, since Georgia had passed a six-week abortion ban after Roe was overturned. Thurman was given abortion pills and suffered a rare complication after her body failed to expel all of the fetal tissue. Back at home, she sought emergency care in Georgia, but because the state’s abortion ban made performing abortions after six weeks a felony, doctors were reluctant to provide her care. 

By the time doctors finally performed the procedure 20 hours later, it was too late. Thurman died as a result of the delay. 

“It’s heart wrenching to know that there are women who will never even be given the chance to share their stories … Can you imagine your daughter dying and the doctors telling you, ‘Oh, the death was preventable,’” Maya Harris said, adding that the conversation encompasses more than just abortion access. 

“It’s also about being able to deliver a healthy baby and survive childbirth. It’s about making a choice about how to grow your family. Trump and Vance, they can say whatever they want, but it is clear that they simply don’t trust women and they cannot be trusted.”