U.S. District Court Holds Intrusive Nebraska Abortion Law Unconstitutional

Planned Parenthood and ACLU Praise Victory for Women's Health

With the consent of the Nebraska attorney general, the United States District Court issued a final ruling declaring Nebraska’s recently enacted "Women's Health Protection Act" unconstitutional. The law was challenged by Planned Parenthood of the Heartland.   Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), co-counsels in the case, applaud the settlement.

“Our patients rely upon our medical staff to provide honest, medically accurate, unbiased information,” said Jill June, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland. “This settlement allows women in Nebraska to continue to make informed decisions about their health care, without the intimidation tactics based in the Act. Simply put, this is a triumph for fairness in standards of care, a triumph for medical providers, and a triumph for women seeking medical services.”

“This is a victory for women and women’s health in Nebraska,” said Roger Evans, PPFA’s Senior Director for Public Policy Litigation and Law. “The statute imposed requirements that were both irrational and impossible, and the only way to comply would have been to cease providing abortions, which is unacceptable. We are gratified that the Nebraska attorney general has agreed to resolve the litigation without further expense to the people of Nebraska.”

"We are very pleased with this outcome. This statute was about political interference in a woman's private health care decisions," said Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, staff attorney at the ACLU and co-counsel in the case. "The government should stay out of these difficult, private decisions on when or whether to have children and let physicians decide what information is best for a patient's individual situation."

In July, U.S. District Judge Laurie Smith Camp issued a preliminary injunction against the “Women’s Health Protection Act,” noting in her ruling that, “No such legislative concern for the health of women, or of men, has given rise to any remotely similar informed-consent statutes applicable to other medical procedure…”

She also stated that complying with the law’s requirements “would be impossible or nearly impossible,” and would place “physicians who perform abortions in immediate jeopardy of crippling civil litigation, thereby placing women in immediate jeopardy of losing access to physicians who are willing to perform abortions.”

The Act, which passed the Nebraska legislature in April 2010, would have required physicians who may perform an abortion to discuss the entire body of research literature about possible health risks related to abortion with their patients who are seeking abortions, even though much of this information may be outdated, false or misleading.

For instance, it would have required a physician to discuss flawed studies that purport to find a link between abortion and breast cancer, even though the leading medical organizations — such as the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists — have all flatly rejected any association between abortion and breast cancer.

Planned Parenthood of the Heartland has served women and men of all ages in the Heartland since the mid-1930s. Planned Parenthood of the Heartland goes above and beyond the existing informed consent laws when screening patients, so that patients are fully informed before making any health care decision. Today the agency offers a full range of quality reproductive health care services to residents in Nebraska, 86 Iowa counties and three counties in Illinois through 23 medical centers and Education and Resource Centers located in Des Moines, Lincoln and Omaha.