Gov. Jim Pillen (R-NE) met with leaders from the anti-abortion movement and pregnancy resource centers across his state on Thursday in preparation for the fight over two competing abortion-related amendments that will take center stage during the 2024 election this fall.
“The contrast is really, really simple,” Pillen told the Washington Examiner regarding the two amendments. “We're going to vote for love and life. We're going to vote for saving babies, or we're going to vote for extended, extended, extended times of having abortion, almost up to birth.”
Nebraska is one of the several states with strict gestational age limits for abortion that will allow voters this November to decide whether or not to enshrine abortion rights into their respective constitutions, each with strong abortion-rights language to which voters will either say yea or nay.
But Nebraska has a second amendment on the ballot for voters to choose that would constitutionally prevent the legislature from allowing abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy. This mirrors the law that was passed by the state legislature in May 2023, almost one year following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade .
Unlike many other states with anti-abortion restrictions, Nebraska did not have a trigger ban in place, meaning a law that would have immediately taken effect once the Supreme Court overturned Roe.
“They duked it out,” President of SBA Pro-Life America Marjorie Dannenfelser told the Washington Examiner. “They came up with something that was a consensus position, not totally pleasing, of course, to the pro-life movement and definitely displeasing to the abortion lobby, but it was subject to all the machinations of the political process, and that is a gift.”
Pillen in January issued a state proclamation promoting a culture of life, with the intention of serving both mothers and their children in an answer to the common criticism from abortion advocates that anti-abortion conservatives do not care about children outside of the womb.
In response, Republicans in Nebraska this year passed the New Born Safe Harbor Act that allows parents to safely surrender babies younger than 90 days to a hospital, fire station, law enforcement agency, or other emergency care provider.
The legislature also passed tax cuts for pregnancy resource centers, which provide a multitude of resources to pregnant women to enable them to carry their pregnancy to term and keep their child if they so choose.
State support for pregnancy resource centers, also known as crisis pregnancy centers, has been an increasing point of contention since the overturning of Roe. Abortion-rights advocates criticize pregnancy centers as purveyors of misinformation since they are often religiously affiliated and do not provide abortion services.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecology , which does not believe in any legal standard for gestational age limits on abortion, describes pregnancy centers as unethical.
Pillen’s administration also launched the “A Good Life” website through the state Department of Health and Human Services that provides resources to pregnant women and parents, ranging from financial assistance to adoption resources.
Because of the implementation of the 12-week ban as well as the efforts of the Pillen administration, State Public Affairs Director for SBA Kelsey Pritchard told the Washington Examiner that the dynamics in Nebraska are “really unlike any other fight in the country.”
“I think it’s a strategy that’s very specific to Nebraska because they have this 12-week law in place anyway and because we know how well supported it is,” said Pritchard. “But I think it’s very smart for Nebraska to give people that option, and it also just draws attention to how extreme the other amendment is.”
Dannenfelser said that the contrast between Pillen’s meeting with pregnancy resource center staff in his state and the abortion-rights efforts on display at the Democratic National Convention this week highlighted the sharp dichotomy between the two sides of the abortion debate.
“It’s unseemly what is happening, but that is a gift of contrast,” said Dannenfelser. “I’m here in Nebraska talking with the governor who’s talking with pro-life pregnancy groups talking about 2024 being the year of life and love, service women, and saving children. And they’re having a ‘scream your abortion’ party.”
Abortion provider Planned Parenthood provided upward of 25 abortions and 10 vasectomies free of charge on the first day of the DNC in specialized vans outside of the venue in Chicago as speakers inside made abortion rights a primary focus of the conversation.
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Pillen said that in the less than 80 days until the election and the vote on the state’s amendments, having the difficult discussion about abortion is paramount.
“It's really, really simple: We have to get more comfortable being uncomfortable talking about our values that we don't normally do in Nebraska,” said Pillen.
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