Back when simply being unhappy was not a permissible basis for a divorce, Nevada became a respite for couples desperate for the chance to move on from their marriage. While the requirements would seem burdensome today - the couple would have to spend six weeks in Nevada to establish residency - they were an improvement from the almost impossible to meet standards that other states imposed. As word spread about Nevada’s “quickie” process (a relative term), Reno became the divorce capital of the world.

Nevada would eventually become famous for two other activities uniquely allowed here: gaming and legal sex work. Laws permitting quickie divorces, gaming and sex work were not the product of a degenerate streak in Nevada’s lawmakers and voters. It was, instead, a recognition that people should be free to make their own choices about what to do with their bodies and their money (especially if those choices supported local businesses and the state’s treasury).

It should be no surprise, then, that Nevada already protects the most controversial individual freedom in today’s politics: the right for a woman to choose to end her pregnancy. With the Supreme Court reportedly poised to overturn Roe v. Wade - the landmark case that held that the U.S. Constitution protects that right - Nevada’s abortion statute is about to go from a needless redundancy to an essential protection.

It’s reassuring that there appears to be little appetite on either side of the political aisle to try to overturn Nevada’s enshrinement of the right to choose. Nevada looks very different today from the tiny state that opened its doors to divorcees in the first half of the 20th Century. Yet the “live and let live” attitude that drove its leaders and voters to protect individual freedoms back then appears to still be alive and well.

That is not enough, though. Twenty-two states have laws on the books that will ban abortion the moment Roe is overturned, assuming the reporting on the Supreme Court’s intentions is accurate. Three of those states - Arizona, Idaho and Utah - border Nevada. Nevada will once again become a respite for those denied a fundamental freedom in their home state.

Nevada’s divorce laws were important because of, not in spite of, how different they were from other states’. By establishing the freedom to divorce here, Nevada also extended it to any couple in the country who could afford to come here. It will be doing the same if and when the Court overturns Roe.

We should welcome that responsibility by ensuring that reproductive-health services, including abortion, remain safe and accessible for Nevada residents and visitors alike. The tighter other states try to shut the door to individual liberty through laws like Texas’s SB 8, the more we should try to open it.

That is nothing new for Nevadans. It is just another example of our commitment to protecting your right to make the best choices for yourself based on your own judgment. Other states may find that repugnant, just like they thought our divorce laws a century ago were abhorrent. But we have never compromised our principles based on others’ cramped view of individual freedoms. Let’s not start now.

Kiel B. Ireland is a deputy solicitor general in the Nevada Attorney General’s Office. The opinions expressed here are solely his own.