Abortion story from wife of Nevada Senate hopeful reveals complexity of issue for GOP candidates
RENO, Nev. — When the wife of a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Nevada spoke candidly last month about the abortion she had before the two met — and the long journey of regret and healing that followed — many Republicans welcomed it as a more compassionate approach to an issue that has hurt GOP candidates at the ballot box.
But as Democrats view abortion rights nationally as key to their prospects in the November elections, from the presidency through the ballot, Sam Brown’s tone on abortion is changing, especially by choosing to publicly share his wife’s story Revisiting Amy and opposing a national abortion ban signals just how complicated the fight over abortion rights could become for GOP candidates this fall.
In Nevada, the Browns’ story could be a factor in a competitive June 11 primary for a seat that Republicans see as a crucial opportunity. It also shows how abortion could be decisive in determining which party controls the U.S. Senate, where Democrats now hold a 51-49 majority but have many more seats at stake this year.
Some Nevada Republicans say the story shows Brown’s deeper understanding of the complexities of reproductive health care in a state where voters guaranteed the right to abortion through a referendum. They also hope it highlights a gray area that many Republican women say goes beyond “yes” or “no” answers on abortion rights.
“I really hate it when people immediately lump all Republicans into one big basket,” said Pauline Ng Lee, president of the Nevada Republican Club.
She said Nevada Republicans have no desire to roll back the state’s existing protections, unlike Republican-led states like Texas and South Carolina. She also hopes the Browns’ announcement will help take abortion access, which has largely been a winning issue for Democrats, “off the table” in the Senate race.
Brown, who sat next to his wife, Amy, as she told her story to NBC News, used the moment to explain his position that questions about abortion are best left to the states. If elected to the Senate, he said, he would oppose a federal abortion ban while supporting Nevada’s current law that protects the right to an abortion up to 24 weeks — about the national standard when Roe v. Wade was in effect .
Brown also called for more compassion, support and education for women facing difficult decisions — a plea he said was based largely on his wife’s experience in Texas as a woman in her 20s 16 years ago.
But Brown, who was embroiled in a busy battle in Nevada’s Republican Senate primary in June, has never said how he reconciles the tension between the narrative that inspired his policy position and its implications in the contemporary landscape. If women in Texas today who face the same conditions were left to the United States, they would not have the options his wife had in the state in 2008.
In Texas, where the two met and lived before Nevada, almost all abortions are banned, with a few exceptions. Similar bans at all stages of pregnancy have been enacted in 14 Republican-led states since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion nearly two years ago.
This isn’t the first time Sam Brown has changed his tune on abortion rights, a topic he often dodged before last month’s interview. In July 2021, his campaign website stated that it was “in our American interests that we protect the lives of unborn babies, just as we would protect the lives of every other American.”
But that unequivocal position has now been removed.
Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen, the incumbent Brown hopes to resign, repeatedly references Brown’s support for Texas’ 20-week abortion ban while running for a seat in the Texas Legislature in 2014. The ban did not include exceptions for rape or the health of the mother. – exceptions Brown told NBC he would support.
Rosen’s campaign specifically points to a questionnaire from Brown’s 2022 Senate meeting in Nevada, where his campaign said abortion should be banned in all cases except when a mother’s life is in danger. Brown’s campaign said an aide created the questionnaire without permission.
And in a 2022 Senate primary debate against former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, he asserted that abortion should be left to the states, but added: “If there was any kind of legislation that would come forward, I would like to see that specific language. .”
On his website, Brown claims he is “personally pro-life” and would work to confirm judges “who understand the importance of protecting life.” He opposes federal funding for abortion, late-term abortions and abortions without parental consent.
Brown’s campaign declined an interview request from The Associated Press, saying the NBC interview was difficult for him and his wife. He did not respond to a question asking what he would say to women who were in the same position as Amy years ago in Texas, where an abortion can now lead to a crime.
His opinion, he said in a statement, has been shaped not only by Amy’s difficult decision, but also by his own experience of almost being killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. Both took place shortly before they met at a medical center in San Antonio, where she was working as an Army dietitian.
“Amy and I met at the darkest moments of our lives, but we found the light in each other. We have found our strength and renewed outlook on life through Christ, through prayer and by trusting each other,” he said in the statement. “I have consistently stated that this issue must be decided at the state level, and the people of Nevada have made their decision.”
Rebecca Gill, an associate professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said Brown’s recalibrated stance sounded like an example of a politician “fishing out some ideas and seeing if there’s something that won’t cost them votes.”
“It certainly gives you the impression that they have some empathy for this situation and that they don’t want to be the ones to substitute their beliefs about this for the judgment of the person who is pregnant,” Gill said. “But they are willing to let other people substitute their beliefs for the judgment of the people who are pregnant.”
Lindsey Harmon, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Nevada, which has endorsed Rosen, a Democrat, said she does not believe Brown will follow through on his promise to oppose a national ban. She added that “we were called hysterical” when we raised the alarm during Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing before the Supreme Court that Roe v. Wade could be overturned.
But some Republicans felt a personal connection to Amy Brown’s story and said they hoped it would spark a complicated conversation.
Republican lawmaker Danielle Gallant often avoids her own personal experiences when talking to colleagues in Nevada’s capital Carson City, like the unplanned pregnancy she decided to endure in 2020, or how that pregnancy ended in a miscarriage during a home birth that almost ended her life. .
She believes that the labels ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life’ do not do justice to her feelings about abortion. She is agitated by both Republican men who portray women who have abortions as “just using it for contraception” and by Democrats who refuse to acknowledge the bond a woman can have with a fetus.
Gallant said she felt relief that Amy Brown shared her story and that Sam Brown’s stance on a national abortion ban puts him in line with the majority of Republican women in Nevada, who are somewhere in the middle on abortion but often don’t speak out.
Gallant, who with her party voted against strengthening existing abortion protections in Nevada, also hopes the Browns’ announcement will help neutralize the issue in his bid to topple Rosen.
“There is no justification for my political position when it comes to abortion,” she said. “Because I have been personally challenged. And I tested my faith and stuck to my faith. But I don’t think I should tell anyone else how to make their choices.”
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AP writer Adriana Gomez Licon contributed reporting from Miami.
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Stern is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. Follow Stern on X, formerly Twitter: @gabestern326.