Nebraska Embarks on Effort to Protect Abortion Rights After Successes

An effort is underway to enshrine abortion rights in the Nebraska Constitution following the success of similar efforts in other red states where Republicans had imposed or attempted to impose abortion restrictions.

Protect Our Rights, the coalition leading this endeavor, submitted proposed petition language to the Nebraska secretary of state’s office last month. The language was kept confidential until it was released by the state’s top elections office on Wednesday. The coalition plans to kick off the effort with a news conference on Thursday, aiming to collect approximately 125,000 valid signatures by next summer to get the measure on the 2024 ballot.

“We’re confident in this effort, and we’re energized,” said Ashlei Spivey, founder and executive director of I Be Black Girl, an Omaha-based reproductive rights group that is part of the coalition. Other members include Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska, and the Women’s Fund.

The proposed amendment would declare a fundamental right to abortion until fetal viability, or when needed to protect the life or health of the pregnant patient. Under the petition language, the patient’s healthcare practitioner would determine fetal viability.

According to Spivey, polling shows that a majority of Nebraskans support abortion access, a trend consistent with other states where voters have supported abortion rights.

Now, advocates in at least a dozen states are looking to take abortion questions to voters in 2024.

Despite indications that further restrictions are unpopular, Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen and other Republican leaders have vowed to do just that, even as others have warned it could cost them elections. Republican state Sen. Merv Riepe, who tanked a 6-week ban bill by refusing to end a filibuster on it, took to the legislative floor in April to urge his conservative colleagues to heed signs that abortion will galvanize women to vote them out of office.

“We must embrace the future of reproductive rights,” he said at the time.

Ashley All, who helped lead the effort in Kansas to protect abortion rights, echoed that warning, noting Kansas voters rejected that state’s anti-abortion effort by nearly 20 percentage points.