LINCOLN — Nebraska lawmakers shut down a filibuster and advanced a bill Wednesday to ban a type of second-trimester abortion in the state.
Legislative Bill 814, introduced by State Sen. Suzanne Geist of Lincoln, drew 34 votes on a filibuster-ending cloture motion. The motion needed 33 to succeed. Senators then gave the bill 34-9 first-round approval.
Geist accused opponents of using those motions to stop her bill but vowed that she would not be intimidated from pursuing it.
LB 814 seeks to ban a common second-trimester abortion method known medically as dilation and evacuation. The procedure involves dilating a woman’s cervix and removing the fetus in pieces. Opponents call the procedure dismemberment abortion.
The bill was named the top priority of the session by abortion opponents.
“This bill will be heard,” Geist said. “The majority of Nebraskans want this to pass.”
But opponents said the ban, if passed, would be unconstitutional.
Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers cited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a case involving Nebraska’s “partial-birth abortion” ban, known medically as intact dilation and extraction. In that case, the court said it was unconstitutional to interfere with women’s access to dilation and evaluation procedures before a fetus is viable.
“Since Sen. Geist’s bill has already been ruled unconstitutional, this is much ado about whatever you want to say,” he said.
In the years since that ruling, federal courts have blocked bans similar to LB 814 in all but two of the dozen states that have passed them. The two states where bans have taken effect have no abortion providers that perform second-trimester abortions.
Nebraska statistics show that most second-trimester abortions in the state are done using other methods, in contrast to national numbers showing the dilation and evacuation method is used in 95% of abortions at that stage.
The abortion procedure banned by LB 814 is used from week 13 through week 24 of a woman’s pregnancy. The ban would apply when clamps, forceps or similar instruments are used to remove pieces of a viable fetus. The ban would not apply if suction is used to remove pieces of a fetus. It also would not apply if the fetus was dead before being removed.
Under the bill, it would be a Class IV felony, punishable by up to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine, for a doctor to perform such an abortion. The bill also would allow a doctor to be sued for performing the procedure. The woman having such an abortion could not be charged.