In a move that prompted fierce backlash from abortion rights advocates, Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen and a handful of medical providers gathered Tuesday to decry "misinformation" about the state's 12-week abortion ban that Pillen said "anyone who's watched TV in the last few weeks has likely seen."
Joined at the news conference by Nebraska's chief medical officer and four private health care providers, Pillen and others lamented misinformation "about miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy treatments" that, the group said, is causing confusion among the state's expecting mothers and maternal health care providers alike.
The news conference — which came as Nebraskans face an unprecedented either-or vote on abortion access this election cycle — came one week after the advocacy group seeking to expand abortion access in Nebraska through a ballot initiative this fall highlighting the delayed treatment of a Lincoln woman's doomed pregnancy, complicated by the limited exceptions to the state's current abortion ban.
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Funded by the advocacy coalition known as Protect Our Rights, the ad recounts the story of Kimberly Paseka, whose doctor sent her home last year to await the inevitable end of her nonviable pregnancy after a series of ultrasounds over several weeks showed a diminishing heartbeat.
The abortion ban enacted by lawmakers last year includes exceptions for sexual assault, incest and the life and health of expecting mothers — none of which applied to Paseka, who for weeks suffered back pain and contractions and mental agony "until I finally passed my baby at home," she recalled Tuesday with tears in her eyes.
"I needed medical intervention, but because of the confusing abortion ban, I was sent home," Paseka . "This could happen to anyone."
At Tuesday's news conference, though, Pillen and the health care providers alongside him insisted Nebraska's law doesn't force women into the kinds of situations that Paseka lived through here last year.
"I want to make sure that all women in Nebraska know that they can get proper and professional medical care in our state when they're dealing with a miscarriage or an ectopic pregnancy," said Pillen, a Republican. "To be clear — crystal clear — under current law, a woman in Nebraska can obtain care for a miscarriage throughout her entire pregnancy.
"It is unconscionable for anyone to claim otherwise. If they do, they are just flat lying about the state laws as it stands today."
While Pillen claimed Tuesday's news conference was not about the dueling ballot initiatives, he and other speakers repeatedly mentioned TV ads as they denounced the abortion-related "misinformation."
The ad Paseka appeared in urges Nebraskans to vote for Initiative 439, which seeks to enshrine "a fundamental right to abortion until fetal viability" into the state's constitution. The competing measure, Initiative 434, seeks to enshrine the state's 12-week abortion ban into Nebraska's constitution.
Pillen's conference prompted Protect Our Rights to host its own news conference a few hours later featuring maternal health care providers and patients, including Paseka, who undercut Pillen's claims and offered stinging criticism of the governor and the providers who joined him Tuesday.
"To think that my experience — my own individual experience — is 'misinformation' is insanely insulting," Paseka said. "The governor should be ashamed himself for even uttering those words."
Pillen's campaign has donated $645 to the Protect Women and Children Committee behind Initiative 434. In a radio call-in show Monday, he as some steadfast abortion opponents have pledged to vote against both measures.
At the governor's news conference in the Capitol, medical professionals including the state's chief medical officer, Dr. Timothy Tesmer, insisted Nebraska's law governing abortions is clear.
An ear, nose and throat doctor, Tesmer said Nebraska law "clearly includes protections for the life and wellbeing of a pregnant mother" allows for the removal of an unborn child who dies in the womb or the termination of an ectopic pregnancy, which occurs when a fertilized egg grows outside of the uterus.
"The current law is clear in allowing physicians to provide necessary treatments to their patients," Tesmer said, noting that no Nebraska doctors have been disciplined for running afoul of the abortion ban in the 17 months since it took effect.
"I have never had any concerns about the laws in Nebraska," said Dr. Robert Plambeck, who has been practicing medicine in Lincoln for more than 30 years and was the only obstetrician-gynecologist who spoke at Pillen's news conference.
"Our laws fully protect my ability to provide professional and caring medical attention when these tragedies occur during pregnancy," he said, later adding: "The last thing we need is misinformation from those who have a particular political agenda about abortion."
Opponents poke holes in claims
Hours later, at the Protect Our Rights press conference, patients and providers poked holes in those claims, accusing Pillen and his allies of intentionally conflating miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies with lethal fetal anomalies, the term used in cases where women are carrying fetuses that doctors have determined won’t survive.
"A miscarriage refers to a pregnancy that no longer has cardiac activity," said Dr. Elizabeth Constance, a reproductive endocrinology and infertility specialist who practices in Omaha. "There is no confusion about whether this can be managed — and there have been no claims of such that I am personally aware of.
"The patients that are being harmed under the current abortion ban are those who have pregnancies that we know will not result in a living baby, but still have cardiac activity."
Paseka is among expecting mothers in Nebraska who have found themselves in the latter group, left off the narrow list of exceptions that allow a doctor to intervene.
"I had to wait for death to happen inside of me," she said. "I've used the term that I felt like a walking coffin. And I don't know how to explain it any better than that. It's just waiting. You know death is happening, but there's nothing you can do about it."
Sen. Merv Riepe, an Omaha lawmaker who cast a pivotal vote in support of the 12-week abortion ban last year, when the fetus has a lethal anomaly. At the bill’s public hearing, Riepe said he felt “compelled to right a wrong.”
But the bill stalled in committee. There are no exceptions for such anomalies in state law.
"And these women are forced to carry that pregnancy or to leave our state like criminals, to get care elsewhere," Dr. Emily Patel, an Omaha obstetrician-gynecologist, said at the Protect Our Rights press conference Tuesday.
Back at the Capitol, Tesmer conceded that "providers are confused by" exceptions to the state's abortion law but said, to him, "the law is is well spelled out."
"If there are any questions that a provider may have, they can consult their legal representative," he said. "Or please, by all means, let DHHS know."
Facing questions over whether an exception to Nebraska's abortion ban in cases of fetal anomalies would help bring clarity to maternal health care providers, the state's chief medical officer declined to weigh in.
"I'm going to leave that up to the legislators to determine where that stands," Tesmer said. "I'm not going to make a personal statement on that at this at this time."