Abstract

On April 13, 2010, Nebraska enacted a new state ban on abortion in the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act that ha caught the attention of many on both sides of the abortion debate, and has inspired other states to attempt similar measures. The statute requires the referring or abortion-providing physician to make a “determination of the probable postfertilization age of the unborn child” and makes it illegal to induce or attempt to perform or induce an abortion upon a woman when the “probable postfertilization age” of the fetus is “twenty or more weeks” unless the doctor determines in “reasonable medical judgment she has a condition which so complicates her medical condition as to necessitate the abortion of her pregnancy to avert her death or to avert serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function or it is necessary to preserve the life of an unborn child.”