Nebraska is one of 10 states where abortion was on the ballot this election, but it’s the only state where voters chose between two proposals competing for a place in the state constitution.
Both proposals, Initiative 434 and Initiative 439, needed approval from more than 50% of voters to pass.
Initiative 434, which asked voters to ban most abortions in the second and third trimesters – received enough support to pass.
“We are grateful for our dedicated team, coalition of faith leaders, over 2,500 volunteers, 1,000 medical professionals, and female athletes who took a stand for life,” said Jessica Flanagain, Protect Women and Children campaign strategist, said in a statement Tuesday night.
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Initiative 439 asked voters to constitutionally guarantee abortion access until fetal viability, with exceptions for life and health issues, and expand Nebraska’s abortion limit from 12 to around 24 weeks. Early results showed support for the initiative, but as more results came in, it fell below the 50 percent threshold.
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At a watch party for Protect Our Rights, Kimberly Paseka shared her story of needing an abortion to manage a pregnancy loss in TV ads for the Protect Our Rights campaign.
“I volunteered collecting signatures, and then they reached back out to me to just reshare my story about how the ban affected me last summer, when it first came to be, and I basically suffered a pregnancy loss, right as that was going on, too,” she said at the Protect Our Rights watch party Tuesday night. “So it was really confusing, and I personally needed to have meaning for my losses. I needed to create positive change somehow, and for me that was fighting against this ban and getting involved with protect our rights and hoping to pass 439 just to save any other mother and woman or girl from any of the trauma that I experienced.”
Elizabeth Constance, an Omaha-based doctor and fertility specialist who has supported Initiative 439 and appeared in ads for the campaign, said she was cautiously optimistic as results were coming in.
“This is really critically important for physicians being allowed to continue to practice standard of care medicine, to be able to look at the patient in front of them and the unique situation that that person is in, and to do what's best for that person in that moment,” she said. “As a fertility specialist, it's also really important because 439 will also, in function, protect access to IVF, and so it's critical to the families of the state of Nebraska who need access to fertility care to be able to continue to have that as well.”
The effort to adopt Nebraska’s 12-week ban in the state constitution – while allowing for more restrictions in the future – sprang up in response to the fetal viability initiative.
Its supporters argued it would give voters a choice on the ballot and provide a “commonsense approach.” Nebraska’s Republican U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts and his mother, Marlene Ricketts, backed the campaign with more than $5.1 million in donations.