In the 2023 legislative session, "the state legislators passed a 12-week abortion ban combined with a ban on underage transgender surgery (LB574), [and] the ACLU sued on behalf of Planned Parenthood," details Matt Heffron, a trial attorney and senior counsel for the Thomas More Society.
They claimed the law violated an article in the Nebraska Constitution by having more than one subject.
At first glance, Heffron says abortion and so-called gender transition surgery may appear to be different subjects, but "the truth of the matter is across the country, these legislative statute single-subject rules are scripted very broadly, usually with the courts deferring to the legislature."
Thomas More Society attorneys demonstrated that Nebraska's treatment of family protections as a broad single subject is solidly in the mainstream and completely in step with the way that the majority of state supreme courts across the country have treated the issue.
On July 26, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that "since Nebraska interprets its single-subject rule broadly, that the statute is acceptable," Heffron reports.
He says challenges like this do not come on a regular basis, and they "almost always … get turned down."
The law upheld by the court has prohibited abortion after a baby has reached 12 weeks of gestational development and has banned transgender surgeries and hormone treatments for minors.
