Pro-abortion rights ballot measure faces challenges from right-wing activists
Advocates claim the legal challenges are ‘distractions funded and driven by anti-abortion politicians.’
A ballot initiative to approve enshrining abortion rights in the Nebraska Constitution is facing a multipronged attack to keep it off the Nov. 5 ballot.
A coalition called Protect Our Rights submitted petitions for a statewide ballot measure that would enshrine in the state constitution the right to get an abortion “until fetal viability … or when needed to protect the life or health of the pregnant patient.”
Fetal viability — when a fetus is able to survive outside the uterus — is generally determined to be between 24 and 26 weeks of gestation, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
One challenge to the measure asks Secretary of State Bob Evnen to keep the measure off the ballot. Two others ask the Nebraska Supreme Court to do the same.
A letter to Evnen from 31 doctors and health care professionals, many of whom have supported stricter abortion bans, claims that the Protect Our Rights measure would redefine fetal viability and create a “fundamental right to abortion.”
That, the letter signers argue, would create a “new state constitutional right.”
Dr. Catherine Brooks, a neonatologist who practices in Lincoln and Omaha, signed on to the letter and also filed an emergency request with the Nebraska Supreme Court to hear the case.
“The language in the initiative is not comprehensible, in conflict with the current medical standard for determining viability, and potentially extends the meaning of ‘viability’ into the third trimester of pregnancy,” Brooks said in an email to the Nebraska Independent. “Unlike the current definition of viability, the proposed constitutional redefinition is unscientific, entirely subjective, confusing, and unworkable.”
“Physicians are uniquely qualified to determine the medical definition of viability based on medical-school training, licensure, residencies, fellowships, board certifications, and experience,” Brooks said. “The pro-abortion initiative requires no such training and opens the door to non-physicians, such as midwives, nurses, and doulas, to make viability determinations which are outside the scope of their education, training, and experience. This is simply unsafe.”
But advocates for the ballot measure say the challenges are misleading and meant to muddy the waters for voters ahead of the election.
Allie Berry, campaign manager for Protect Our Rights, said the challenges are “distractions funded and driven by anti-abortion politicians who are doing everything in their power to undermine the process and lay the groundwork for their ultimate goal: a total abortion ban.”
“Protect Our Rights is a community-driven campaign in response to the current 12-week abortion ban that puts Nebraskans’ health and fertility at risk. The majority of Nebraskans know that these decisions belong to patients and their trusted medical providers, not politicians,” Berry said in a statement to the Nebraska Independent.
The right-wing Thomas More Society filed a lawsuit raising similar challenges with the Nebraska Supreme Court on behalf of Carolyn LaGreca, founder of the Women’s Care Center in Omaha — a so-called crisis pregnancy center that works to encourage patients not to choose abortion — to block the measure from the ballot.
Two private citizens also filed letters with Evnen’s office to block the measure from the ballot.
Evnen announced Aug. 23 that supporters of two competing abortion petition efforts had gathered enough signatures to put both the measures on the ballot. The measure that receives the most votes will be enacted, Evnen said.
The second measure, put forward by the group Protect Women and Children, would amend the state constitution to prohibit abortions after 12 weeks’ gestation “except when a woman seeks an abortion necessitated by a medical emergency or when the pregnancy results from sexual assault or incest.”
Protect Women and Children did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the challenges to the petition.
Evnen has until Sept. 13 to approve the ballot language for the measures.
The Protect Our Rights coalition is made up of the ACLU of Nebraska, the Women’s Fund of Omaha, Nebraska Appleseed, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Nebraska, and the Nebraska Civic Engagement Table.
The coalition behind the Protect Women and Children measure consists of the Catholic Conference, Nebraska Right to Life, and the Nebraska Family Alliance.
