Both LB 1103 and LB 594 represent groundbreaking abortion legislation. Both were passed by overwhelming margins in the Nebraska Unicameral. And yesterday, Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman signed both into law, effective in October.Perhaps notorious abortionist Leroy Carhart's plan to make Nebraska the center for late term abortion isn't going to work out after all.
LB 1103 bans abortion beginning at the 20th week after conception and is based on scientific findings that a fetus of that age can feel pain. And anyone who would perform an abortion after 20 weeks could be charged with a felony.
LB 594 is simply "informed consent" legislation that allows for civil lawsuits against abortionists who fail to screen women for risk factors of abortion and/or to inform them of the potential complications of the abortion procedure.
Not surprisingly, the pro-abortion groups are furious and, as they tend to be even when the most common sense abortion restriction is suggested, they're downright irrational too. For instance, in a letter to Governor Heineman which urged him to veto LB 594, the Center for Reproductive Rights claimed that it would "require doctors to violate medical ethics and standards of care."
Huh?
How on earth do requirements for an abortionist to screen his patients for risk factors and inform them of possible side-effects and complications (which other doctors are required to do for any other medical procedure) "violate medical ethics and standards of care?"
Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning knows the legislation will be challenged in the courts but he has expressed his commitment to defend it heartily. Undoubtedly, the challenge will center on "health of the mother" factors but LB 1103 (formally named the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act) was written with constitutional review very much in mind. Thus, it prohibits abortion after 20 weeks gestation except when the mother "has a condition which so complicates her medical condition as to necessitate the abortion of her pregnancy to avert death or to avert serious risk of substantial or irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function or...it is necessary to preserve the life of an unborn child."
Attorney Mary Spaulding Balch, the Director of State Legislation for National Right to Life says, "Although it will be a case of first impression, there are strong grounds to believe that five members of the current U.S. Supreme Court would give serious consideration to Nebraska’s assertion of a compelling state interest in preserving the life of an unborn child whom substantial medical evidence indicates is capable of feeling pain during an abortion.”
"For years Leroy Carhart has thumbed his nose at Nebraska's outdated post viability statute which contains a health exception you could drive a Mack truck through." But Nebraska Right to Life Director Julie Schmit-Albin says the Unicameral's bold decisions will correct that. "LB 1103 creates a case of first impression for the courts to acknowledge the capability to feel pain as a compelling state interest to protect those unborn babies from an excruciatingly painful death. The more narrowly defined medical emergency exception with an objective standard should go a long way towards closing the loopholes in current Nebraska statute."
