Nebraska Supreme Court allows competing abortion measures on November ballot

The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled Friday that dueling constitutional amendments can appear on state ballots this fall.

One of the ballot measures, known as “Protect the Right to Abortion,” would amend the state’s constitution and stipulate that “all persons shall have a fundamental right to abortion until fetal viability, or when needed to protect the life or health of the pregnant patient.”

The other, called “Protect Women and Children,” would ban abortions in the second and third trimesters, except in the case of a medical emergency or when the pregnancy is a result of sexual assault or incest.

Nebraska law prohibits abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for rape, incest and saving the mother’s life. The pro-abortion rights measure would effectively undo that law, while the other measure would essentially codify it in the state’s constitution.

Abortion rights opponents had argued in a pair of lawsuits that the amendment to expand abortion rights violated a state rule that says a ballot proposal must only address one subject.

The state Supreme Court ruled Friday that the measure was not in violation of the single-subject rule.

The Nebraska secretary of state will host hearings in October on the two ballot measures, as well as four other unrelated ones, the secretary of state’s office said Friday.

Matt Heffron, a senior counsel for a firm that argued against allowing the abortion rights initiative to stay on the ballot, slammed the high court’s ruling.

“We are deeply concerned that the Nebraska Supreme Court has allowed this intentionally deceptive initiative to go before Nebraskans for a confusing vote,” said Heffron, who works at the Chicago-based Thomas More Society, an organization that backs