A Nebraska law that combined abortion restrictions with another measure to limit gender-affirming healthcare for minors does not violate a state constitutional amendment requiring bills to stick to a single subject, the state supreme court ruled on Friday.
The state’s high court acknowledged in its ruling that abortion and gender-affirming care “are distinct types of medical care”, but the law does not violate Nebraska’s single-subject rule because both abortion and transgender health fall under the subject of medical care.
The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) representing Planned Parenthood of the Heartland. The high court rejected arguments by ACLU attorneys, who argued the hybrid law passed last year violates Nebraska’s single-subject rule.
Members of Nebraska’s legislature, which has no official political parties within it, had originally proposed separate bills: an abortion ban at about six weeks of pregnancy and a bill restricting gender-affirming treatment for minors. But lawmakers who are aligned with the Republican party and who dominate the state legislature added a 12-week abortion ban to the existing gender-affirming care bill only after the six-week ban failed to defeat a filibuster.
The combination law was the Nebraska legislature’s most controversial legislation in the 2023 session. And its gender-affirming care restrictions triggered an epic filibuster in which a handful of lawmakers sought to block every bill for the duration of that session – even ones they supported – in an effort to stymie it.
A district judge dismissed the lawsuit last August, and the ACLU appealed.
In arguments before the high court in March, an attorney for the state insisted the combined abortion and transgender care measures did not violate the state’s single-subject rule because both fall under the subject of healthcare.
But an attorney for Planned Parenthood argued that the legislature recognized abortion and transgender care as separate subjects by introducing them as separate bills at the beginning of last year’s session.
“It pushed them together only when it was constrained to do so,” ACLU attorney Matt Segal argued.
At least 25 states have adopted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, and most of those states face lawsuits. Federal judges have struck down the bans in Arkansas and Florida as unconstitutional. Judges’ orders are in place temporarily blocking enforcement of the ban in Montana and aspects of the ban in Georgia.
Since the overturning of Roe v Wade by the US supreme court in 2022, ending a nationwide right to abortion, most Republican-controlled states have started enforcing new bans or restrictions, and most Democrat-dominated states have sought to protect abortion access.
