Nebraska Supreme Court Upholds Law Limiting Both Medical Care for Transgender Youth and Abortion

OMAHA, Nebraska — A Nebraska law that combines abortion restrictions with another measure aimed at limiting gender-affirming health care for minors does not violate a state constitutional amendment requiring bills to stick to a single subject, a majority of the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled Friday.

The state Supreme Court acknowledged in its decision that abortion and gender-confirming care “are distinct types of medical care,” but held that the law did not violate Nebraska’s single-subject rule because abortion and transgender health care are both within the realm of medical care.

The majority relied, in part, on a passage from an 1895 decision to conclude that the state constitution provides wide latitude over what constitutes a single subject.

“Ultimately, if a bill has only one general purpose, however broad, and contains no material that is irrelevant to it, and the title accurately expresses the subject matter of the bill, it does not violate the state constitution’s single-subject rule,” Chief Justice Mike Heavican wrote for the Court.

The decision came after a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union representing Planned Parenthood of the Heartland. The Supreme Court rejected arguments by ACLU lawyers that hybrid law The law passed last year violates Nebraska’s single-subject rule.

Republican lawmakers in Nebraska’s officially nonpartisan legislature had initially proposed separate bills: a ban on abortion at about six weeks pregnant and a bill limiting sex reassignment treatments for minors. The GOP-dominated legislature Added ban on abortion after 12 weeks to the existing gender-affirming health care bill only after the six-week ban failed to overcome a parliamentary filibuster.

The combination law was the most controversial in the Nebraska legislature’s 2023 session, and its restrictions on gender-affirming care sparked a backlash. epic obstruction in which a handful of lawmakers sought to block every bill during that session — even ones they supported — in an effort to stymie it.

A district judge dismissed the complaint last August, and the ACLU appeals.

In a Supreme Court argument in March, a state attorney insisted that the combined abortion and transgender care measures did not violate the state’s single-subject rule because both fall within the realm of health care.

But a Planned Parenthood attorney argued that the Legislature recognized abortion and transgender care as separate issues by introducing them as separate bills at the start of last year’s session.

“It only caused them to gather when they were forced to,” ACLU attorney Matt Segal said.

In a scathing dissent, Justice Lindsey Miller-Lerman accused the majority of applying different standards to bills passed by the Legislature and those requested by voter referendum. She pointed to the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision that blocked a ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana after finding that its provisions allowing people to consume marijuana and produce it were separate subjects that violated the state’s single-subject rule.

Miller-Herman criticized the majority for granting latitude and being complacent toward the legislature “at the expense of the Constitution.”

“It was the duty of the legislature … to draft a law, including a title, that stated ‘one subject only’; failure to do so renders the bill unconstitutional,” Miller-Lerman wrote. “It is not the role of this court to save bills.”

Most Republican-controlled states have implemented abortion bans in some form since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled. overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the national right to abortion in 2022.

Fourteen states currently ban abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with some exceptions; three ban it after about six weeks of gestation, before many women know they are pregnant, and a fourth bans it in Iowawhich is expected to go into effect next week. Nebraska and North Carolina are the only states to have passed a ban that goes into effect after 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Most Republican-controlled states have also moved in recent years to ban gender reassignment care for transgender minors. Twenty-two states currently have such restrictions.

Several Democratic-controlled states have adopted policies in the past two years to ensure access to abortion and rehabilitation care, including by trying to block investigations of health care providers in their states by authorities in places where the ban is in effect.

Voters may have the final say on abortion access in Nebraska. Two competing questions Bills on the issue are expected to be voted on in November: one would add abortion rights to the state constitution, the other would enshrine Nebraska’s current 12-week abortion ban in the state constitution.