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2025 Brings More Pro-life Compromise

 

 

“If you show partiality, you are committing sin” (James 2:9).

 

We have said before that pro-life and pro-abortion bills often have much in common. Legislation presented this year provides more examples of this being the case.

 

Below are three bills concerning the preborn which have been introduced in the Unicameral this session, two by pro-life senators, and one by a pro-abortion senator.

 

Please note the following that each of the bills — whether pro-life or pro-abortion — have in common:

• If a mother wants to commit an abortion, it is simply her choice to do so.
• Preborn human beings are regarded as if they were some lesser being, and not human at all — certainly not as bearing God’s image.
• Babies in the womb are not entitled to equal protection under the law.
• Our most innocent and needy neighbors continue to be deprived of their most basic rights.
• Abortion is treated as if it were health care to be regulated, rather than murder, which must be abolished.

 

Text of the bills can be read at the bills’ status pages.

 

 

Legislative Bill 53

“Provide criminal and civil immunity for pregnancy outcomes”

 

LB53 status

Introducer: Sen. M. Cavanaugh (pro-abortion)

Supporters: ACLU of Nebraska

Hearing date: March 6, 2025

Committee assigned: Judiciary Committee

 

Summary:

No “outcome” from “decisions” made by a woman about her “own pregnancy,” including the “intentional termination” (murder) of her own preborn child, shall result in any criminal penalty for or civil action against the woman (Sections 1–3).

 

 

Legislative Bill 512

“Adopt the Chemical Abortion Safety Protocol Act”

 

LB512 status

Introducer: Sen. Holdcroft (pro-life)

Supporters: Nebraska Catholic Conference, Nebraska Family Alliance, Nebraska Right to Life

Hearing date: February 13, 2025

Committee assigned: Health and Human Services Committee

 

Summary:

• Intended to “enact safety regulations” “to protect women” who commit murder via chemical abortion (Statement of Intent).
• Requires any Nebraska physician functioning as assassin-for-hire to check for ectopic pregnancy before providing a mother with chemicals to use with the “specific intent” of murdering “her preborn child” (Sec. 2–3).
• A follow-up visit must be scheduled, but does not have to be kept (Sec. 4).
• The mother shall be immune from any penalty for having committed murder (Sec. 6).
• If the physician does not follow the steps laid out before assisting with the murder, his conduct may be considered “unprofessional” because he has failed to “conform to the standards of acceptable and prevailing practice of medicine,” or of “the ethics of the profession” (Sec. 7).

 

 

Legislative Bill 669

“Change requirements for voluntary and informed consent and civil actions relating to abortion”

 

LB669 status

Introducer: Sen. Storer (pro-life)

Supporters: Nebraska Catholic Conference, Nebraska Family Alliance, Nebraska Right to Life

Hearing date: March 6, 2025

Committee assigned: Judiciary Committee

 

Summary:

• Amends several existing statutes in Nebraska law. One of the statutes being amended (Neb. Rev. Stat. § 28-327) begins with the phrase, “No abortion shall be performed except…” This phrase is left just as it is.
• Requires the abortionist to privately ask clients if they feel coerced into committing an abortion, or have been victim to domestic violence or human trafficking. If the answer is affirmative, an opportunity to make a confidential phone call is to be offered. However, so long as this has been done, the hired hitman can still proceed to assist the mother in murdering her child if she decides to go ahead with it, and this will be considered a “voluntary” action (Sec. 3).
• Indicates that Nebraska is not currently “prevented from providing adequate legal remedies to protect … unborn human life” (Sec. 1), and yet does nothing to provide the unborn human life with any legal protection at all. For the woman who truly is coerced, since the preborn baby is without legal protection, under this law the coercers would face no justice, because the woman can kill her child and nothing illegal will be considered to have taken place.

 

 

How you can help

 

1. Share this page with others. Copy this link and send it to anyone you think needs to know.
    
2. Voice your godly opposition to any (or all three!) of these bills.
   
   (a) If the hearing is scheduled in the future, choose to:
   
   i. Testify in person, OR
   
   ii. Submit testimony via online comment (from the bill’s status page).
   
   Either way, please also email the members of the committee.
   
   If testifying in person, write to let us know so we can connect you with others who will be doing the same. New to tesifying in person? Here are some tips. Abolitionist testimony was offered in person on LB512, and we’re planning in-person testimony for March 6th on LB53 as well.
   
   (b) If the hearing is in the past but the bill is still active, please write or call your senator.

 

 

What to say?

 

Urge the senators not to support these bills. Remember what the bills all have in common. (See the top of this page.)

 

Instead, plead with the senators to sponsor a bill of equal protection, which would immediately abolish abortion as murder without exception or compromise. Refer them to the biblical counsel given to them by over 130 pastors in Nebraska recommending that they do this.

 

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Addendum: Legislative Bill 124

“Change penalties for motor vehicle homicide of an unborn child”

 

LB124 status

Introducer: Sen. Holdcroft (pro-life)

Supporters: Nebraska Catholic Conference, Nebraska Family Alliance

Hearing date: January 23, 2025

Committee assigned: Judiciary Committee

 

This bill, while it does not discuss abortion directly and does not fail on every point listed above, is worth mentioning because the bill amends a short, simple act that would classify abortion as murder, if it were not for the mother being given complete immunity if it is her own conduct that results in the death of her preborn child (see Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 28-388 to 28-394).

 

Summary:

• The Homicide of the Unborn Child Act defines homicide crimes against an unborn child: murder in the first and second degrees, manslaughter, and motor vehicle homicide. This bill amends the portion of the act concerning motor vehicle homicide against an unborn child (§ 28-394).

• What it leaves completely unchanged is that the Homicide of the Unborn Child Act does not apply “when the act or conduct is” “committed or engaged in by the mother of the unborn child,” or concerns “any medical procedure performed with the consent of the mother” (§ 28-390).

• Says that its purpose is to make the penalties for the homicide of an unborn child while driving under the influence match the penalties for other homicides committed while driving under the influence (Statement of Intent). But it will not accomplish this purpose, because the penalties are not applied equally. For if it is the mother of the preborn child who is driving under the influence, and she survives but her conduct kills her child, she would be held guiltless (§ 28-390).*

• Homicide of an unborn child while driving under the influence is an uncommon offense. As a deputy county attorney has said, “It’s one of those laws you don’t see a lot.” By contrast, abortions take place so often in Nebraska that on average another preborn baby is murdered at least once every four hours, every single day. But according to the Homicide of the Unborn Child Act, because of the exception for mothers, this is not actually homicide. And LB124, while amending the act, does nothing to rectify this.

 

*In a review published by the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine, of 120 automotive crashes involving pregnant occupants, in over half of the cases (62.5%), the mother survived while the preborn child died.