Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) issued the following statement in response to the Supreme Court’s decision that a Mississippi ban on abortions after 15 weeks is constitutional.
“Today, a majority of justices on Supreme Court voted to overrule Roe v. Wade, rolling back the clock on reproductive care and depriving Americans of a long-established right. This is a devastating day for women in America. People in dozens of states across the country will live under extreme abortion bans, and access to critical care will be threatened all across the U.S. This is absolutely unacceptable. Women need the full range of reproductive health services to make important decisions about their physical and mental health, their bodies, their economic future, and their families’ well-being. The majority of Nevadans agree, and I will continue to fight for reproductive rights and push back on extremist laws that deprive people of essential health care.”
Although abortion is protected by law in Nevada due to a 1990 referendum that enshrined it in statute, a Republican Congress could enact laws to restrict abortion nationwide. Senator Cortez Masto has been a tireless advocate for reproductive rights in the U.S. Senate. From the beginning, she raised the alarm about the danger the Dobbs case represented to Roe v. Wade and joined Congressional colleagues in filing a brief in the case urging the Supreme Court to uphold Roe. She has repeatedly called on Congress to do more to protect women’s health care by passing the Women’s Health Protection Act, legislation she cosponsored to guarantee equal access to abortion everywhere. She was a vocal opponent of the Trump administration’s efforts to limit access to family planning and reproductive health care and worked to block federal court nominees who would roll back women’s health care and reproductive freedoms.