Lincoln, Neb., Jan 9, 2020 / 18:30 pm
On the first day of the Nebraska Unicameral's legislative session, state Sen. Suzanne Geist introduced a bill that would ban a common procedure used for second-trimester abortions.
The bill, introduced Jan. 8, seeks to ban dilation and evacuation abortions, or "dismemberment abortions" as the bill calls them.
"Dismemberment abortion means an abortion in which, with the purpose of causing the death of an unborn child, a person purposely dismembers the body of a living unborn child and extracts him or her one piece at a time from the uterus through use of clamps, grasping forceps, tongs, scissors, or similar instruments that, through the convergence of two rigid levers, slice, crush, or grasp a portion of the unborn child's body to cut or rip it off," the bill says.
The bill would make an exception for cases in which the mother's life is at risk by continuing a pregnancy, or for cases in which a physician determines there is "serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function" should the mother continue a pregnancy.