Readout of White House Meeting with State Legislative Leaders on Reproductive Rights

Today, Jennifer Klein, White House Gender Policy Council Director, and Julie Chavez Rodriguez, White House Intergovernmental Affairs Director, convened a meeting with state legislative leaders from Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada on reproductive rights.

Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada have taken and will continue to take critical steps to improve reproductive health care and protect access to abortion. 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 In 2021, New Mexico repealed an abortion ban that had been in place since 1969, before the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v Wade.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 rights on account of an individual’s race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, ancestry or national origin.

Legislators from all 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 out-of-state patients seeking abortion care; after Texas’s six-week abortion ban went into effect last September, some clinics in the region experienced a 500% increase in patients.

Senior Administration officials thanked the state legislative leaders for their efforts to protect reproductive rights and expand access to reproductive health care, and committed to working together in the months ahead.

State legislative leaders from today’s meeting included:

• 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
• New Mexico State Representative Micaela Cadena