Nebraska Examiner Press Release
BY: AARON SANDERFORD – AUGUST 28, 2024
LINCOLN — A Douglas County woman asked the Nebraska Supreme Court this week to overrule Secretary of State Bob Evnen and stop an abortion-rights amendment from appearing on the November ballot.
Carolyn LaGreca of Douglas County was identified in her court filing as a founder, first director, and board member of the Women’s Care Center in Omaha, which became Bethlehem House and housed and served women with unplanned pregnancies.
LaGreca’s lawsuit, filed Monday, is separate from a formal complaint that a number of Nebraska medical providers sent Monday to Evnen.
She declined a request for comment through her attorney, who works for the nonprofit Thomas More Society. The socially conservative group opposes abortion and funded the lawsuit on her behalf, said Matthew Heffron, one of her lawyers for the Chicago-based organization.
Her legal push asks the state’s high court to skip steps and make a ruling before Evnen must certify the state’s ballot Sept. 13. The petition for such a so-called “original action” argues that LaGreca has no time to wait for normal District Court proceedings.
“If this matter had been filed in district court after the Secretary of State’s decision on August 23, it would have been nearly impossible to conclude the matter, as well as the inevitable review by the Court, before the September 13 deadline,” the lawsuit says.
Allie Berry of Protect Our Rights, the group behind the abortion-rights ballot initiative, described the latest legal maneuvering as distractions. She said the work appears “funded and driven by anti-abortion politicians who are doing everything in their power to undermine the process and lay the groundwork for … a total abortion ban.”
“The majority of Nebraskans know that these decisions belong to patients and their trusted medical providers, not politicians, and we will vote like it this fall,” she said. “Our measure was certified by the Secretary of State, and we have followed the appropriate processes every step of the way.”
Protect Our Rights leaders have said they expected administrative and legal challenges from abortion opponents.
The core of the lawsuit’s argument is that the abortion-rights amendment sought by Protect Our Rights attempts to codify more than just a right to abortion in the Nebraska Constitution until fetal viability.
The lawsuit argues the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized a distinction between a “fundamental right” to an abortion and making sure it is granted “without interference from the state,” as the proposed constitutional amendment spells out.
The filing says the language also sets out a new definition for viability, which it says could be “virtually unlimited.” Support Our Rights and other abortion-rights groups have argued that most medical experts set fetal viability between 22 and 24 weeks.
The lawsuit alleges the proposed language would create “conflicting standards” for abortion before and after viability by allowing exceptions for the “life” and “health” of the mother. A competing amendment backed by anti-abortion groups contains similar exceptions.
Much like a complaint a group of Nebraska medical professionals filed Monday with the Secretary of State’s Office, the lawsuit also argues that by allowing a “treating health care practitioner” to decide viability, it broadens the definition of the term.
The Nebraska Supreme Court has not yet decided whether to take up the lawsuit. The court is hearing oral arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit challenging an Evnen decision to stop registering felons to vote after they have finished serving their sentences, despite a new state law allowing them to vote.
The “single subject” rule was the topic of another recent case before the Nebraska Supreme Court, when the court agreed the Legislature has the right to combine measures under a single heading or subject. One of the dissenting judges in that case questioned other justices for leaving room to more strictly interpret the single-subject rule for citizen-led petition initiatives.
Regarding the complaint filed by the doctors, Evnen could choose to remove the measure from the ballot administratively. But that would likely spur legal challenges from abortion-rights supporters.
Those groups may yet sue to stop a competing ballot measure that would constitutionally limit abortion to the first trimester of pregnancy and keep the door open for the Legislature to pass stricter bans in the future. Both ballot initiatives qualified for the November ballot on Friday, Evnen announced.
