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When a patient sits across from me in my Las Vegas practice, my job begins with listening. What symptoms are they experiencing? What medications are they taking? What worries them? What stands between them and the care they need?
Sometimes, it’s a co-pay they cannot afford. Sometimes, it’s an appointment postponed because other bills cannot wait. As a primary care physician and internist, I see how barriers to care shape my patients’ health.
Government interference should never become another obstacle. Question 6 would establish a fundamental right to abortion in Nevada’s Constitution, protecting care provided by qualified health care practitioners until fetal viability, and afterward when needed to protect the pregnant patient’s life or health. It would give patients stronger protection to make deeply personal decisions about their pregnancies with their health care providers.
You do not have to provide abortion care to understand why this matters. In primary care, we treat the whole person. We help patients manage diabetes, high blood pressure, and other conditions that can complicate a pregnancy. We discuss medications, health risks, and plans. Those conversations require honesty and trust.
Patients should feel safe asking questions. Physicians should be able to explain medical options based on a patient’s circumstances and the best available evidence. A politician who has never met that patient cannot make medical decisions for them.
When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade four years ago, I worried about what losing federal abortion protections would mean for my patients and fellow physicians. I was grateful to practice in Nevada, where abortion care remained legal. But gratitude alone does not protect a right.
Nevada voters have understood this for decades. In 1990, we approved statutory abortion protections that cannot be amended or repealed by the Legislature alone. Those safeguards are meaningful, and voters deserve credit for establishing them. Question 6 would build on those protections by placing an explicit right to abortion in our state Constitution.
As a physician, I want patients to have confidence that their care will be guided by their medical needs and their own decisions. They deserve protections that endure beyond an election cycle.
I also know that a right can be harder to exercise when someone is already struggling financially. My patients’ experiences with prescription costs remind me how little room many families have for another obstacle. Reproductive health care belongs in that same conversation about whether people can actually obtain the care they need.
Supporting Question 6 does not require every Nevadan to hold the same personal beliefs about abortion. It requires respecting that another person’s health, family responsibilities, and circumstances may differ from our own—and that they must be able to make decisions about their own pregnancy.
In medicine, we cannot substitute assumptions for listening. We cannot treat every patient’s circumstances as interchangeable. Our laws should leave room for the individual judgment that good care requires.
In 2024, more than 64% of Nevada voters supported Question 6. But that vote was the first step. Nevada requires voter approval in two successive general elections for this kind of constitutional amendment. My responsibility as a physician is to put my patients’ health first. That means speaking up when I have an opportunity to protect their access to care.
This election, we can strengthen the freedom of Nevadans to make personal medical decisions with qualified health care professionals. We can give future patients a stronger guarantee that their health, circumstances, and choices will matter.
