Abortion rights group calls Gov. Pillen’s recent news conference ‘misleading propaganda’

On Oct. 22, Gov. Jim Pillen held a news conference to publicly oppose what he suggested was misinformation about reproductive health in the state. 

Although Pillen said he wasn’t at the conference to talk about the two competing abortion-related measures on the November ballot, he said, “Unfortunately, though, the result has led to a lot of misinformation about miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy treatments.”

Pillen said he was there to answer questions he’d received about messages in the media regarding pregnancy care in the state. 

“To be clear, crystal clear, under current law, a woman in Nebraska can obtain care for miscarriage throughout her entire pregnancy. It is unconscionable for anyone to claim otherwise. If they do, they are just flat lying about the state law as it stands today,” Pillen said. “I do not want to risk medical professionals or health care institutions refusing women care that they have been misinformed. Good public health relies on the truth, not fear or misinformation.”

When Pillen was asked about where he heard people saying that miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies couldn’t be treated under the law, he said: “I don’t watch a lot of TV, but I don’t think you have to see — you talk to people.” 

Pillen was joined by Timothy Tesmer, the chief medical officer of the state Department of Health and Human Services, Lieutenant Gov. Joe Kelly, and several health care professionals. The Nebraska Independent reached out to Gov. Pillen’s office for a comment for this story, but did not receive a reply.

Dr. Emily Patel is a maternal-fetal medicine specialist in Omaha. She attended the news conference and took part in a counter-event later that day. She told the Nebraska Independent that while Pillen said he was there to get out in front of misinformation, his real message was, “Women should not be concerned about the current abortion ban as it relates to their health care.” 

“The thought that comes to mind is that obviously, we were focusing on two things here, miscarriage and ectopics, but what they failed to mention was that there is a lot of gray and nuance in between that we can’t just wrap into a nice package and say that everything is covered,” Patel said. 

Patel said she thinks that the governor was referring to an ad run by Protect Our Rights, a coalition of five abortion rights groups behind Measure 439, the ballot initiative that would change the state constitution to protect abortion up to around 24 weeks’ gestation. 

The campaign features a patient who at over 12 weeks into her pregnancy began bleeding and having what Patel called an “inevitable miscarriage” or “inevitable abortion.” The patient was seen by a physician who was unable to treat her under the current state law because there was what the law calls a detectable “heartbeat.” She ended up having a miscarriage at home alone.

The American College of Gynecologists notes that a fetus does not have what can accurately be called a heart until between 17 and 20 weeks’ gestation. 

“Basically the governor and the physicians that were there at that press conference were calling that misinformation. And I think that’s incredibly insulting to women and to patients like her who have experienced that,” Patel said. “I think it’s really important for people to understand that putting things into a box of ‘miscarriage’ or ‘ectopic,’ we can’t do that as health care providers and we have to just use our medical knowledge to make decisions that are appropriate for each individual without the government telling us what we can and can’t do.” 

Asked at the press conference whether there had been confusion on the part of physicians about how to handle patients experiencing miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies, Tesmer responded: “Yes, providers are confused by the law. Just lately, I have received a number of messages from physicians expressing confusion over the law and asking for clarification or asking for some guidance. So the confusion is out there, not only with patients in the public, but also with medical providers.” 

Patel called Tesmer’s statement “a huge red flag and incredibly concerning. There should never be any confusion about the medical care that we as physicians can provide and that patients can receive, because that will inevitably lead to delays in care,” she said. 

Patel noted that Pillen did not fact-check any of the misinformation being spread by those behind the anti-abortion ballot measure, including an ad claiming that under Measure 439, men will be able to force women to have abortions. 

“This ballot initiative, if it passes, will have no effect on what we have to do as physicians to give proper informed consent,” Patel said. “Certainly nobody, men, parents, significant others, will be able to force anybody to have an abortion based on Initiative 439.”  

Patel said her goal, and the Protect Our Rights campaign’s goal, is to provide as much information as possible. 

“We’re just trying to push out as much myth-busting factual information as we possibly can to the public so that people, when it comes down to it, will feel like they have what they need to make the right decision for them in a factual way,” Patel said. “Ultimately, if somebody gets the facts and decides to vote against 439, then all I can say is, at least they had the facts and they were not confused on the matter, and that’s important to me.”