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

Brief

What this bill does

If it passes, what actually changes?

This is an amendment to Nebraska's existing abortion informed-consent law. It swaps the required pre-abortion screening away from statistical health risks and toward coercion, violence, and trafficking.

• Amends 28-325, 28-326, 28-327, 28-327.03, 28-327.04, 28-327.06, 28-327.11, 28-327.12, and 38-2021.
• Deletes 28-326 definitions of "complications associated with abortion," "negligible risk," and "risk factor associated with abortion."
• Requires the screener to ask, not merely evaluate, about coercion, domestic violence, and human trafficking.
• On any such disclosure, requires giving both national hotline numbers and offering a confidential telephone call.
• Replaces the written risk-factor checklist with the woman's own signed certification that she was asked.
• Adds both hotline numbers to the information given twenty-four hours beforehand, at 28-327(2)(f).

What it says it is for

Does it do what it claims?

The title matches the half of the bill visible here. The civil-actions half is not in the provided text.

• "Change requirements for voluntary and informed consent" matches the rewritten screening in 28-327(4).
• "Eliminate defined terms" matches the three definitions struck from 28-326.
• "Restate legislative intent" matches struck finding (4) and new coercion finding (8) in 28-325.
• "Change requirements relating to civil actions" cannot be checked; 28-327.11 and 28-327.12 text is missing.
• Nothing visible changes which abortions are legal; the procedure definitions stay intact.

Where Scripture bears on it

What does the Bible say about this?

The bill turns on a narrow question — whether the law's answer to a woman who may be under pressure is to require that someone ask her, privately, and write down that she was asked. Isaiah 1:17 sets the duty toward those under another's power: "Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow." John 7:51 supplies the procedural instinct behind a mandatory inquiry: "Doth our law judge any man, before it hear him, and know what he doeth?" What the verses do not settle is nearly everything the bill actually decides. Neither speaks to abortion. Neither tells you whether a question asked one hour beforehand, in the facility performing the procedure, with a signature collected, relieves anyone or merely documents her. Neither says whether deleting the risk-factor and complication disclosures serves the same woman the coercion screening is meant to protect, and neither adjudicates who may sue whom, which is the half of the bill not shown here.

The case each way

What is the strongest argument for, and against?

The disagreement is whether trading statistical risk counseling for coercion screening protects women better or just changes the script.

• For: Direct questions about coercion, violence, and trafficking catch abuse that passive evaluation can miss.
• For: Hotline numbers plus an offered confidential call give a coerced woman a private exit.
• For: The struck definitions demanded peer-reviewed risk statistics that many clinicians call contested science.
• Against: Deletes the duty to disclose each complication tied to each identified risk factor.
• Against: Requires the woman herself to sign a certification about a mandatory questioning session.
• Against: A trafficking disclosure triggers only hotline numbers and a call offer, no referral.

What is unsettled

What should I be careful about?

This reading covers only the excerpt provided, which cuts off mid-sentence inside Section 3.

• Text stops at 28-327(5); sections 28-327.03 through 28-327.12 and 38-2021 are absent.
• No appropriation, fee, or dollar figure appears anywhere in the provided text.
• No effective date, emergency clause, or operative date appears in the provided text.
• Subdivision (5) still references "risk factors," a term Section 2 deletes; the excerpt cannot resolve this.
• Struck versus new wording is inferred from renumbering, because the extraction lost strikethrough marks.
• No penalty or enforcement mechanism for skipping the screening appears in the visible text.

Text (1)

• Introduced (application/pdf)

Each link opens the Legislature's own document. The text itself is not in our database yet (fetched lazily); when it lands these pages will carry it verbatim.

All Actions (40)

Votes (5)

Every roll call as the Legislature recorded it, with each member's vote by name.

Sponsors (2)

• Sen. Brian Hardin [District 48]
• Sen. Tanya Storer [District 43] — primary sponsor

Amendments (0)

There are no amendments to this bill.

Fiscal Notes & Statements (9)

• Committee Statement — Committee Statement
• Fiscal Note — Fiscal Note
• Document — Hunt MO171 (failed)
• Document — Hunt MO172 (failed)
• Document — Hunt MO173 (out of order)
• Document — Juarez MO391 (failed)
• Document — Spivey MO389 (failed)
• Statement of Intent — Statement of Intent
• Document — Storer MO393 (failed)

The Legislature's own companion documents; each link opens the official copy.

Committees (1)

Related Bills (0)

No related bill information was received for LB669.