Nearly four years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) is continuing the fight to make sure women can travel across state lines to get abortions. 

She is reintroducing the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act on Monday, she told The Nevada Independent.

The senator's bill — a revived version of one she introduced in 2023 — would prohibit restrictions on traveling across state lines for reproductive healthcare, penalties on those who assist with such travel and sanctions against providers who facilitate care for out-of-state patients. It would also allow the U.S. attorney general, affected private individuals and organizations and reproductive healthcare providers to file lawsuits under its provisions and instruct courts to award litigation costs to anyone who wins. 

In an interview with The Nevada Independent, she said she wants women to know that reproductive freedom is top of mind for her.  

"This is such a priority and an issue that we can't lose sight of," Cortez Masto said. 

She warned that Republicans and the Trump administration are continuing to target abortion rights. 

"They're going to try to do anything they possibly can — even though they claim they're not — but they're trying to do everything that they can to create some sort of national abortion ban, whether it's taking funds away, or … allowing the states to do it, or doing executive orders, or you name it," Cortez Masto continued. 

After the Dobbs decision eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, 13 states banned the procedure and several more states imposed restrictions before fetal viability. Since then, some of them have tried to pass laws to make it more difficult for women to travel out of state to obtain abortions. 

Abortion is legal in Nevada through 24 weeks, making travel to the Silver State an option for women seeking to end their pregnancies, especially for those who live in Idaho, Texas and Utah, nearby states with stricter laws. In November, Nevadans will again vote on Question 6, which they approved with nearly two-thirds of the vote in 2024, to enshrine abortion rights in the state Constitution. 

Most agree that states can't explicitly limit pregnant women's travel. The Supreme Court has previously reaffirmed the right of U.S. citizens to travel across state lines and obtain services that are legal in the places they visit, including medicine. Instead, laws in states such as Texas and Tennessee have targeted those who help women and minors travel to get care.  

"They're figuring out if they can't target the doctors, they can't target the women, then they're going to target others for helping the women, or they're going to, instead of making it a criminal penalty, they'll do a civil penalty," Cortez Masto said. "All of it has a chilling effect."

Cortez Masto's bill would protect those who provide or facilitate abortions in Nevada and other states where the procedure is legal. 

"We are ensuring that not only a woman, if she crosses that state line, but if somebody wants to help her get across the state line to Nevada to access that reproductive care, that they're protected and they cannot be sued either civilly or criminally for helping a woman," she said. 

Cortez Masto previously introduced the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act in 2023. The bill died in committee. 

"In Nevada, this is not a partisan issue," she said. "Republicans, Democrats, nonpartisans all support a woman's right to choose here."

But the Republicans in Congress are another story, making passage in a GOP-controlled Congress an uphill battle. Asked about any signs Senate colleagues across the aisle might get on board with the legislation, Cortez Masto said she expected the Trump administration to continue targeting reproductive freedom for political gain, "but a majority of the country knows that's wrong." 

No Republicans have signed onto the bill. Its co-sponsors include the bulk of the Democratic caucus, from Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) to Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). It is endorsed by the American Civil Liberties Union and more than a dozen abortion rights groups, such as Reproductive Freedom for All and Planned Parenthood, who slammed Republican attacks on abortion rights. 

"Their deeply unpopular anti-abortion agenda has already decimated our health care landscape, and abortion bans stretch across 20 states, forcing patients to travel," Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, wrote in a press release. "We need every lawmaker to use every tool in their toolbox to protect access to abortion."