Abortion In Nevada

Abortion in Nevada is legal. 62% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Legislation by 2007 required informed consent. Attempts were successfully made to pass abortion legislation in May 2019, being pushed through a largely Democratic controlled state legislature. The number of abortion clinics in Nevada has decline over the years, with 25 in 1982, seventeen in 1992 and thirteen in 2014.  There were 8,132 legal abortions in 2014, and 7,116 in 2015.

State funding could be used to fund abortions in case of risk of life to the mother, rape or incest but no such funding was used in 2010.  There are active abortion rights and anti-abortion rights activists in the state.

Terminology

The abortion debate most commonly relates to the "induced abortion" of an embryo or fetus at some point in a pregnancy, which is also how the term is used in a legal sense. Some also use the term "elective abortion", which is used in relation to a claim to an unrestricted right of a woman to an abortion, whether or not she chooses to have one. The term elective abortion or voluntary abortion describes the interruption of pregnancy before viability at the request of the woman, but not for medical reasons.

Anti-abortion advocates tend to use terms such as "unborn baby", "unborn child", or "pre-born child", and see the medical terms "embryo", "zygote", and "fetus" as dehumanizing. Both "pro-choice" and "pro-life" are examples of terms labeled as political framing: they are terms which purposely try to define their philosophies in the best possible light, while by definition attempting to describe their opposition in the worst possible light. "Pro-choice" implies that the alternative viewpoint is "anti-choice", while "pro-life" implies the alternative viewpoint is "pro-death" or "anti-life". The Associated Press encourages journalists to use the terms "abortion rights" and "anti-abortion".

Context

Free birth control correlates to teenage girls having a fewer pregnancies and fewer abortions. A 2014 New England Journal of Medicine study found such a link.  At the same time, a 2011 study by Center for Reproductive Rights and Ibis Reproductive Health also found that states with more abortion restrictions have higher rates of maternal death, higher rates of uninsured pregnant women, higher rates of infant and child deaths, higher rates of teen drug and alcohol abuse, and lower rates of cancer screening.

According to a 2017 report from the Center for Reproductive Rights and Ibis Reproductive Health, states that tried to pass additional constraints on a women's ability to access legal abortions had fewer policies supporting women's health, maternal health and children's health.  These states also tended to resist expanding Medicaid, family leave, medical leave, and sex education in public schools. According to Megan Donovan, a senior policy manager at the Guttmacher Institute, states have legislation seeking to protect a woman's right to access abortion services have the lowest rates of infant mortality in the United States.

Poor women in the United States had problems paying for menstrual pads and tampons in 2018 and 2019. Almost two-thirds of American women could not pay for them. These were not available through the federal Women, Infants, and Children Program (WIC). Lack of menstrual supplies has an economic impact on poor women.  A study in St. Louis found that 36% had to miss days of work because they lacked adequate menstrual hygiene supplies during their period.  This was on top of the fact that many had other menstrual issues including bleeding, cramps and other menstrual induced health issues. Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, and Pennsylvania all had exemptions for essential hygiene products like tampons and menstrual pads as of November 2018.

History

Legislative history

The state was one of 10 states in 2007 to have a customary informed consent provision for abortions. In August 2018, the state had a law to protect the right to have an abortion.

As of May 14, 2019, the state prohibited abortions after the fetus was viable, generally some point between week 24 and 28. This period uses a standard defined by the US Supreme Court in 1973 with the Roe v. Wade ruling. Florida, Nevada, and New York had laws prohibiting abortions after 24-weeks. This law was still in place as of mid-May 2019. The law also required that abortions be done by licensed physicians.  In situations where abortions take place after 24 weeks, the law said that the procedure needed to take place at a licensed hospital.

SB 179, which would decriminalize medicated abortions, was scheduled to be voted on in late May 2019.   It passed the House 27–13, with only one Democrat voting against it. Other revisions under the new law in May 2019 included abortion providers not longer needing to tell women of the "emotional implications" of having an abortion. Trust Nevada Women Act, SB 179, was signed into law by Democratic Governor Steve Sisolak on May 31, 2019.  In signing the bill, he said, "Nevada has a long history of trusting the women of our state to make their own reproductive health care decisions and protecting the right to reproductive freedom."  The new law made several changes to existing abortion laws in the state, including decriminalizing the performing of abortion procedures, and removing informed consent laws that said doctors needed to tel women of  the "emotional implications" in having an abortion and what she should do after the procedure to avoid post-op complications; the latter was changed to require doctors to tell women getting abortions about "describe the nature and consequences of the procedure."  The law also meant doctors no longer had to collect data about women related to their marital status and age.  In addition, Senate Bill 94 allocated  $6 million to be spent statewide for grants to family planning organizations.

Judicial history

The US Supreme Court's decision in 1973's Roe v. Wade ruling meant the state could no longer regulate abortion in the first trimester.

Clinic history

Number of abortion clinics in Nevada by year.

Between 1982 and 1992, the number of abortion clinics in the state decreased by eight, going from 25 in 1982 to seventeen in 1992. In 2014, the state had thirteen facilities that provided abortions, of which 8 were abortion clinics. In 2014, 88% of the counties in the state did not have an abortion clinic. That year, 9% of women in the state aged 15 – 44 lived in a county without an abortion clinic. In 2017, there were three Planned Parenthood clinics in a state with a population of 668,173 women aged 15 – 49 of which two offered abortion services.

Statistics

In 1990, 149,000 women in the state faced the risk of an unintended pregnancy. Between 2011 and 2014, the state saw a decrease of 6% in the number of abortions performed in the state. In 2014, 62% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. In 2017, the state had an infant mortality rate of 5.8 deaths per 1,000 live births.

Abortion financing

In 2010, the state had zero publicly funded abortions. The law as of May 1, 2018 said that potential danger to the life of the mother, pregnancy as a result of rape or incest were the only reasons that state funding could be used by women seeking abortions.

SB 94 was passed in June 2019 in the final days of the legislative session. US$6 million was allocated as part of the bill to fund reproductive assistance measures in the state through family planning grants.  Money could be used by eligible organizations for a wide variety of uses including immunizations, birth control, emergency contraception, and male sterilization surgery. It did not cover abortions. This money was intended to assist low income women and women living in largely rural areas.

Abortion rights views and activities

Protests

Women from the state participated in marches supporting abortion rights as part of a #StoptheBans movement in May 2019.

Abortion rights protesters were at the Nevada Capitol Building with signs to support the passage of SB 179, including pink signs that said "protect safe, legal abortion."

Views

Women in Film Executive Director Kirsten Schaffer said of Georgia and other states similar restrictive abortion bans passed in early 2019, "A woman's right to make choices about her own body is fundamental to her personal and professional well-being. [...] We support people who make the choice not to take their production to Georgia or take a job in Georgia because of the draconian anti-choice law. To that end, we've compiled a list of pro-choice states that offer meaningful tax rebates and production incentives, and encourage everyone to explore these alternatives: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Washington."

Legislation co-sponsor Democratic Senator Yvanna Cancela said of the SB 94's passage, "When the rest of the country may feel hopeless, may feel bleak, they should look to Nevada as the shining beacon that we are for women's rights."

Anti-abortion views and activities

Views

Following the passage of the May 2019 legislation SB 94, Republican . Assemblywoman Alexis Hansen said, "This bill is a slippery slope that (will) leave women and children less informed and more susceptible to exploitation."

Violence

Rachelle "Shelley" Shannon attempted to set fires at abortion clinics in Oregon, California, Idaho and Nevada during the late 1980s and early 1990s and eventually plead guilty for these cases of arson.  In 1993, she would be found guilty of attempted murder of Dr. George Tiller in 1993 at his Wichita, Kansas clinic.

Footnotes