Nebraska governor to signal 12-week abortion ban, limits on gender-affirming look after minors

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Republican Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen is scheduled to signal a invoice Monday that bans abortion at 12 weeks of being pregnant and restricts gender-affirming medical look after folks youthful than 19.

The abortion ban would take impact instantly after the governor’s signature, whereas the ban on gender-affirming care would tackle Oct. 1.

Nebraska’s conservative-led, unicameral Legislature handed the invoice with the 2 contentious points on Friday after hours of heated debate. Conservative lawmakers wrangled simply sufficient votes to finish a filibuster and approve it. Invoice opponents have promised to sue to try to block the regulation.

The proposal proscribing gender-affirming care was the flashpoint of an epic filibuster led by Omaha Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh. She and a handful of progressive allies slowed the enterprise of passing legal guidelines to a crawl by introducing modification after modification to each invoice that made it to the Senate ground. That despatched management scrambling to prioritize which payments to push via.

The hybrid measure tied collectively restrictions that Republicans have pursued throughout the U.S.

North Carolina additionally not too long ago handed a 12-week abortion ban, amongst a slew of restrictions enacted in states after the U.S. Supreme Court docket final 12 months struck down the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that established a nationwide proper to abortion. Fourteen states have permitted an abortion ban all through being pregnant.

Nebraska had not handed a brand new ban because it grew to become the primary state to restrict abortions round 20 weeks of being pregnant in 2010. The brand new 12-week ban will embrace exceptions for rape, incest and to save lots of the lifetime of the mom.

The invoice additionally would stop transgender folks below 19 from receiving any gender-confirming surgical procedure. It could additionally limit using hormone remedies and puberty blockers in minors, placing the state’s chief medical officer — a political appointee who’s an ear, nostril and throat physician — answerable for setting the principles for these therapies. In Nebraska, folks youthful than 19 are thought-about minors.

No less than 17 states had already enacted legal guidelines proscribing or banning gender-affirming medical look after minors earlier than Monday, and proposals are pending earlier than the governors of Texas and Missouri. Medical teams and advocates say such restrictions are additional marginalizing transgender youth and threatening their well being.

One Nebraska lawmaker, Omaha state Sen. Megan Hunt, disclosed in March that her teenage son is transgender and mentioned Friday that she now plans to depart the state.

Supporters mentioned they’re attempting to guard kids from making choices they may come to remorse.

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Related Press author Josh Funk in Omaha, Neb., contributed to this report.