Submitted by Christine Saunders

I have proudly called Assembly District 25 home for the past seven years. It’s where I bought my first home and recently started my family. For over a decade, I’ve focused my career working on expanding access to reproductive health care– from advocating for a statewide paid family medical leave insurance policy to directly funding abortion care for Nevadans as a board member for a statewide abortion fund. As a constituent, I want to be represented in the Assembly by someone I can trust to fight for reproductive freedom, which is why I’m voting for Selena La Rue Hatch. 

Since the Dobbs decision, 25 million women and people who can get pregnant live in states with abortion bans. Right now, approximately 1 in 5 abortion care patients must travel to across state lines to access the care they need, with many  traveling here to Nevada to access care. People are being turned away from emergency rooms, begging for care. Doctors are facing the threat of jail time for doing their jobs. And families are facing uncertainty with their access to IVF under threat.

When it comes to something as personal and complex as pregnancy, politicians are never more qualified to make healthcare decisions than a woman and her provider. I feel blessed to have had my child, but nothing reinforced my belief in the need to protect reproductive freedoms more than experiencing a high-risk pregnancy and undergoing an emergency C-section.

Selena La Rue Hatch is the only candidate for Assembly District 25 who supports Question 6, which will protect the right to an abortion in the Nevada State Constitution. It must pass in 2024 and 2026 to amend the Constitution. 

While Diana Sande claims to support abortion, she refuses to support Question 6 and has expressed support for crisis pregnancy centers, which are notorious for spreading false and harmful information about abortion and reproductive health. These stances align her more closely with Donald Trump and Project 2025 than with the values of her own community members.

Question 6 establishes a permanent layer of protection so that no matter who holds office in our state, Nevadans will be protected from the extreme abortion bans we’ve seen take hold in neighboring states. It keeps families – not politicians – in charge of their own healthcare decisions allowing people to make these deeply personal decisions in consultation with their doctors and those they love and trust.  

Assembly District 25 and Nevada, need a representative who truly understands the importance of protecting reproductive freedom and has a proven record of doing so. The stakes are too high to put our trust in someone like Diana Sande, who is unreliable when it matters most. Join me in voting for Selena La Rue Hatch and ‘yes’ on Question 6 this November.

Christine Saunders is a mom, policy advocate, and constituent of AD25.

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