LINCOLN — Two was company and three is now a crowd of last-minute lawsuits filed in Nebraska against competing abortion amendment proposals.

More than 20 doctors supporting an abortion-rights amendment sued Friday to press the Nebraska Supreme Court to remove neither abortion amendment from the ballot or pull them both. 

Their effort joined two  lawsuits that were refiled Friday — one from a Douglas County woman and the other from a Lancaster County neonatologist, both of whom are seeking to remove the abortion-rights amendment from the ballot.

Oral Arguments Scheduled

The Nebraska Supreme Court has agreed to hear all three of the lawsuits before Secretary of State Bob Evnen must finalize the Nov. 5 general election ballot on Sept. 13.

The Supreme Court announced it would hear oral arguments at 10 a.m. Sept. 9 for the new both-or-none lawsuit and both of the refiled lawsuits, which were brought from residents of Lancaster and Douglas Counties.

In the both-or-none lawsuit, the doctors say they “reluctantly” filed because of the other two legal efforts to deny voters a chance to weigh in.

The lawsuit argues that the abortion-restriction amendment violates the constitutional rule requiring every ballot initiative to cover a single subject and says it risks confusing voters.

“The Restrictions Amendment and the Rights Amendment must both be included or excluded from the ballot together,” their lawsuit argues.

Dr. Elizabeth Constance, a fertility specialist, is one of the doctors filing that suit. She said the state’s current abortion ban at 12 weeks gestational age already puts families at risk.

“We are … united in the belief that complex medical decisions should be between patients and their trusted healthcare providers and free from government interference,” she said in a statement.

Nebraska Could See Competing Amendments

The measure she and her fellow plaintiffs back would put a right to abortion in the state Constitution until the point of “fetal viability,” as determined by a health care provider. It includes later exceptions for the mother’s health.

The measure they oppose would constitutionally limit abortion to the first trimester of pregnancy, with a later exception for the mother’s life. It would still let the Legislature pass stricter bans.

If the ballot measures survive, Nebraska would be the first state since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade to have competing abortion-related constitutional amendments on the same ballot. If both pass, the measure with the most votes becomes law.

The lawyer for the Douglas County resident who ran a shelter for women facing unplanned pregnancies and the attorney for the Lancaster County doctor opposing the abortion amendment made some fixes Friday to their filings.

Both of the refiled lawsuits removed hedge words used on the documents vouching for the truth of their statements. That seemed to make a difference to the high court, which requires that affidavits be verified as true and correct, legal observers told the Examiner.

Fixes Made

Instead of saying that the facts attested are true and correct “to the best of her knowledge and belief,” the filings now say the contents attested are “true and correct.”

Douglas County resident Carolyn LaGreca and Lancaster County Dr. Catherine Brooks again asked the Supreme Court to hear their cases as a so-called “original action,” because time is short.

“We’re not going away,” said Matthew Heffron, LaGreca’s lawyer from the socially conservative Thomas More Society, a group based in Chicago.

Brooks’ lawyer, Brenna Grasz, shared a statement Thursday from Brooks calling the language of the abortion-rights amendment “subjective, confusing and unworkable.”

“It subjects women and medical professionals to vague, unscientific standards, and dangerously expands the scope of abortion practice,” Brooks said in the previous statement.

This story was published by Nebraska Examiner, an editorially independent newsroom providing a hard-hitting, daily flow of news. Read the original article: https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2024/08/30/threes-a-crowd-in-nebraska-abort...