“I completely understand what it means to feel like you don’t have any rights when it comes to what you want to do with your body or the big choices that come with pregnancy,” said Jasmine Smith, a mother, full-spectrum doula and sworn campaign sponsor for Nebraska’s Protect Our Rights, which is trying to overturn a 12-week ban and enshrine abortion protections in the state constitution. (Courtesy of Protect Our Rights)
Editor’s Note: This is part of a series of conversations about voter-initiated efforts to restore abortion access across the country.
Of the 10 states with citizen-initiated abortion-rights measures on their ballots, only Nebraska will have two competing proposed amendments. So far, every state that has voted on abortion changes since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022 has sided with abortion rights, but none yet had two amendments offering different options.
Initiative Measure 434 , organized by Protect Women and Children, would ban abortion after the first trimester in the Nebraska constitution and allow lawmakers to pass even earlier limits. It reads: “Except when a woman seeks an abortion necessitated by a medical emergency or when the pregnancy results from sexual assault or incest, unborn children shall be protected from abortion in the second and third trimesters.”