White House Discusses Reproductive Rights With State Legislative Leaders
Top White House officials discussed with state legislative leaders from Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada on reproductive rights.
The meeting was convened by Jennifer Klein, White House Gender Policy Council Director, and Julie Chavez Rodriguez, White House Intergovernmental Affairs Director.
Legislators from these three states discussed specific policy measures that would advance women’s reproductive health, including expanding coverage of abortion care and protecting the safety and security of doctors and clinics.
They also discussed the need to prepare for an anticipated surge in patients from outside the state seeking abortion care. After Texas’s six-week abortion ban went into effect last September, some clinics in the region experienced a 500 percent increase in patients.
These three states will continue to take critical steps to improve reproductive health care and protect access to abortion, the White House said in a press release issued after the meeting. In the 2022 legislative session, Colorado passed the Reproductive Health Equity Act, which codifies the right to make reproductive health decisions free from government interference. In 2021, New Mexico repealed an abortion ban that had been in place since 1969, before the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v Wade.
This fall, Nevadans will also vote on an Equal Rights Amendment to the state constitution, which would prohibit the denial or abridgement of reproductive rights.
Senior Administration officials committed to work together with the state legislative leaders to protect reproductive rights and expand access to reproductive health care in the months ahead.
Nevada Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, Colorado House Majority Caucus Co-Chair Meg Froelich, Colorado State Senator Julie Gonzales, New Mexico House Majority Floor Leader Javier Martinez, New Mexico State Senator Shannon Pinto, and New Mexico State Representative Micaela Cadena attended the meeting on Tuesday.
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