A proposed amendment to enshrine access to abortion care in the Nebraska Constitution moved closer to appearing on the ballot in November after a coalition of reproductive rights advocates submitted the required number of valid signatures to state officials on Wednesday.
Protect Our Rights, the group leading the election effort, announced that it had collected the signatures of more than 207,000 registered voters — more than the roughly 123,000 it needed to submit before Wednesday’s deadline to move forward with the process of putting its bid forward. in the vote.
The group said it also met a requirement under state law that the total include at least 5% of registered voters in 38 of the state’s 93 counties — which was seen as a particularly difficult hurdle for abortion rights groups in the state.
A disproportionate number of Democratic voters in solidly red Nebraska live in just a few counties around Omaha and Lincoln; just two of the state’s 93 counties voted for President Joe Biden in 2020.
The Nebraska Secretary of State’s office confirmed the group exceeded the signature requirement. The office has until Aug. 12 to verify the submitted signatures and until Sept. 13 to certify the measure for the November ballot.
The measure proposed by Protect Our Rights — a coalition that includes Planned Parenthood North Central States and the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska — would enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution until fetal viability, or around 24 weeks. of pregnancy. The proposal includes exceptions beyond this period for the life and health of the woman.
“As mothers, doctors, families, concerned citizens and people facing pregnancy, we were united in the belief that patients and providers should have the freedom to make their own health care decisions, not politicians,” he said. Ashlei Spivey, member of Protect Our Rights. ‘, the executive committee said at a press conference on Wednesday.
She added: “We believe that people should be treated with compassion and given the privacy to decide if and when they should make the deeply personal decision to have an abortion. We also believe that healthcare providers should not be criminalized and forced to delay care. or putting their patients’ lives at risk due to extreme restrictions and political interference. We believed and knew that people across the state felt the same way.”
Abortion is currently illegal in Nebraska after the 12th week of pregnancywith exceptions for rape, incest and saving the mother’s life.
If voters approved the proposed change, it would effectively undo that law.
Nebraska is one of 11 states where organizers seek to enshrine the right to abortion in state constitutions. The measures are officially on the ballot in Maryland, New York, Florida, South Dakota and Colorado. Organizers in Arizona submitted signatures to state officials for their effort on Wednesday.
In the two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, voters in several states – including California, Michigan and Ohio – approved ballot measures guaranteeing the right to abortion.
Organizers in Nebraska, however, still face some obstacles before November.
Opponents of the ballot measure still have several weeks to contest the signatures. And most importantly, a second effort with a Competing measures on reproductive rights could complicate the path forward for the reproductive rights effort.
This effortsupported by anti-abortion groups, including the Nebraska Catholic Conference and Nebraska Right to Life, seeks to present voters with a proposed constitutional amendment that would prohibit abortion after the first trimester, except in situations where the abortion is “necessary by an emergency medical or when the pregnancy results from sexual assault or incest.”
Anti-abortion groups working to promote the measure said their organizers sent more than 205,000 signatures, more than the required amount, to state officials on Wednesday.
A third, launched by a group of individual anti-abortion activists, seeks to amend the state constitution by adding a personhood clause that states that “a preborn child at all stages of development is a person.” If passed, this would effectively ban all abortion care and would likely affect fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization.
That effort did not produce the required number of signatures before the deadline, the Nebraska Secretary of State’s office said.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
