First-round debate is scheduled to begin Wednesday morning at the Legislature for a bill that would prohibit doctors from performing abortions if cardiac activity is detected in an embryo.
The bill (LB626) from Sen. Joni Albrecht of Thurston would effectively ban abortions in Nebraska around six weeks' gestation — before many women know they are pregnant — following more than a dozen other states that have enacted similar measures.
It's also the first time state lawmakers will consider legislation to further restrict abortion in Nebraska since the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade last June, putting the Cornhusker state in the national spotlight in the ongoing fight over abortion rights.
Organizers on either side of the debate have scheduled competing news conferences, rallies and advocacy action ahead of and during the eight-hour debate, which could come to an end sometime after 6 p.m. Wednesday.
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When a cloture motion is filed, Albrecht signaled she likely has the 33 votes needed to end a filibuster and advance the bill to the second round of consideration on Day 60 of the 90-day legislative session.
Sen. Merv Riepe of Ralston, a co-sponsor of the bill who voted to advance it from the Health and Human Services Committee in February, said he was likely to vote for cloture even though he believes the current bill goes too far.
He pointed to similar laws passed in other states that have been subject to lawsuits, as well as a referendum last August in Kansas that rejected an effort to remove protections for abortion from the state constitution.
"They shoved it down their throat, in essence, and now they are back to a 22-week ban," Riepe said.
The former hospital administrator in March introduced an amendment to lower Nebraska's current ban on abortion from 20 weeks down to 12 weeks, giving women twice the time to seek a legal abortion compared with the parameters now included in Albrecht's LB626.Ìý
The 12-week proposal would have gone before senators at a special legislative session following the Supreme Court overturning Roe last year. But only 30 senators signed onto the proposal, and then-Gov. Pete Ricketts decided not to call lawmakers back to Lincoln.
Riepe said he thought the Legislature should get a chance to debate the 12-week proposal this year, which he said created a more "predictable, sustainable, and thought-out" ban on abortion, but said neither supporters or opponents of Albrecht's bill were particularly thrilled about the idea.
"If neither side is perfectly happy, then you may have a sustainable bill," Riepe said. "I just want to put it in front of people because I think that's what democracy is about."
Still, with more than 50 amendments and procedural motions already filed ahead of debate, it's not likely the 12-week option will come before lawmakers on Wednesday.
In that case, Riepe said he planned to vote for cloture along with 31 other Republicans and Omaha Sen. Mike McDonnell, a registered Democrat, in order to advance LB626 so his amendment has the opportunity to be discussed on the floor during the next round of debate.
Albrecht said she would not support her own bill if Riepe's amendment is adopted — "I'm all in on my bill" — and Riepe said he still had to make up his mind about how he would vote if a majority of senators do not back his proposal.
"I probably won't know until a few seconds before I hit that button," he said.
Albrecht's bill, as passed out of committee, includes exceptions for rape, incest and life-saving procedures, and does not apply to ectopic pregnancies, in vitro fertilization or other procedures that lead to the end of a pregnancy.
She said the bill's goal was to end "elective abortions" in the state.
While LB626 does not create any criminal offenses for doctors who perform an abortion after cardiac activity is detected, those physicians would be subject to a review by their peers that could result in their medical licenses being forfeited.
But opponents of the bill, including Omaha Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh and Sen. Jen Day of Gretna, said the bill does not repeal existing language from state law that could be used to prosecute those same doctors.
In a minority report filed alongside a majority report by the committee, Cavanaugh and Day said that by not removing existing criminal penalties, a court could conclude the Legislature intended to keep those offenses available to prosecutors to use against doctors who perform abortions.
On Tuesday, Day said she believes supporters of LB626 will have the votes to advance the bill, even as several senators have wavered and later resolved their support in recent weeks.
Day said she believes the ongoing filibuster of another controversial bill — LB574 from Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha prohibiting minors in Nebraska from receiving gender-affirming care — may have bolstered support for the abortion ban as relationships among senators have frayed in recent weeks.
The minority, which would need 17 votes to block a cloture motion, plan to do "whatever we need to do to get our point across," Day said, adding opponents have not taken any filibuster or procedural options off the table.
"We have a lot to talk about with what we're seeing in other states with these types of bans," Day said. "It will be another terrible, awful day."