(The Center Square) – A Nevada judge rejected a ballot initiative that seeks to codify abortion rights in the state’s constitution.
District Court Judge James T. Russell said the 2024 ballot initiative, called the “Nevada Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment,” violates the state’s single subject rule for constitutional amendments.
“Every individual has a fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which entails the right to make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy, including, without limitation, prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, vasectomy, tubal ligation, abortion, abortion care, management of a miscarriage and infertility care,” says the initiative, which is backed by the group Nevadans for Reproductive Rights.
According to Russell, the initiative “does not embrace a single subject, contains a misleading description of effect, and contains an unfunded mandate.”
The order issued last week marks a victory for the Coalition for Parents and Children (CPC), which filed a lawsuit to block the amendment. CPC argued the ballot initiative violated state requirements for ballots in that it embraced “a multitude” of medical subjects, not just one subject. CPC called this “logrolling.”
“Amending a state constitution requires a clear purpose and concise language so the voter understands the amendment’s true effect,” said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, which filed a similar lawsuit that’s pending in Florida. “This Nevada abortion amendment was written to mislead Nevada voters to enshrine killing unborn babies under the broad guise of ‘reproductive freedom.’”
As a result, Staver said in a press release that “misleading amendments like this must be rejected” and that “abortion harms women and cruelly kills defenseless children in the womb.”
