A new effort to restrict access to abortion in the state was introduced Monday afternoon in the Nebraska Legislature, less than two weeks after a bill that would have banned abortions around six weeks of pregnancy fail to overcome an obstruction.
The new plan to ban abortion at 12 weeks of pregnancy drew fervent protests from opponents who had been assured by the Speaker of the Legislature, Sen. John Arch, that the abortion proposal was dead for the session.
The way the measure was introduced drew even more outrage: as an amendment to a bill that would have banned gender-affirming hormone treatments and gender reassignment surgery for minors, the most controversial bill of the session that has led at least two lawmakers to filibuster each time. invoice before the body this year.
Omaha Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh, who has led the filibuster effort since late February to protest the trans bill, angrily vowed Monday night to step up her efforts to further slow the work of the Legislature after the abortion amendment.
“We have 161 hours after today. That’s from 9am to midnight,” he said. “And you better believe I’m going to make the most of every minute of it. Every minute of it.”
In late April, an abortion bill that would have banned abortions once heart activity was detected failed to get the 33 votes needed to end debate. Historically, this means the bill is shelved for the rest of the session.
Senator Ben Hansen, Blair’s chiropractor, introduced the 12-week abortion ban on Monday, pitching it as a reboot of a compromise amendment tabled during the abortion debate last month by Republican Senator Merv scream Riepe had initially supported the 6-week ban, but later expressed concern that the measure was too extreme. When his fellow Republicans rejected his compromise amendment to advance the ban to 12 weeks, he withheld his vote on the motion to end the debate, leading to the abortion bill’s failure.
But opponents note big differences between Hansen’s amendment and Riepe’s. While Hansen’s measure provides exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother, it does not include an exception for fatal fetal abnormalities, as Riepe’s bill did. Hansen’s proposal also criminalizes abortion for doctors who perform it outside of the listed exceptions.
Opponents of both the abortion restrictions and the trans bill said the latest effort by conservative lawmakers to combine the two subverts legislative rules that require two combined measures to be linked and are calling for any proposal that imposes a criminal element must first pass through the Legislature’s Judicial Committee.
Adding the abortion ban as an amendment to the trans bill also means it can jump ahead in the legislative process. Instead of going through three rounds of debate that each bill must survive to pass, it would undergo only a final two-hour round of debate, critics said.
Liberal lawmakers in the officially nonpartisan body also complained that a promise last month by Arch and the author of the trans bill, freshman Sen. Kathleen Kauth, to reach a compromise with opponents on his bill before it was scheduled for a final round of debate ever. it came to fruition. Instead, conservative lawmakers decided among themselves to carve out exceptions for minors already receiving gender-affirming care and call it a compromise, opponents said.
At a minimum, opponents wanted sections of the bill that would ban gender-affirming hormone treatments to be removed.
Omaha Sen. Jen Day criticized the move, noting that she and other lawmakers had heeded calls from conservative leaders to “keep the temperature down” during debates on the bill so as not to upset compromise efforts on the bill trans.
“And we did, in good faith,” Day said. “And then today, the proponents of the bill came in, threw a bunch of gasoline on the carpet, threw a match in the chamber and lit the building on fire. So much for keeping the temperature down.”
