Nebraska law is an anti-abortion model

LINCOLN, Neb., Dec. 28 (UPI) -- A Nebraska law banning abortions after only 20 weeks' gestation with only narrow exceptions followed the U.S. Supreme Court's lead, the law's author said.

Pro-abortion groups say the Nebraska law, which went into effect in October, sets the stage for similar laws in other states in 2011, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Gonzales vs. Carhart upheld a Nebraska ban on "partial birth" abortion in which a fetus is removed intact from the womb. The decision seemed to mark a change in the high court's position on abortion – and gave Nebraska Sen. Mike Flood, Ind-Lincoln, the impetus for legislation that would go further, the Post reported.

"I think Justice Kennedy's decision (writing for the high court's majority) opened the door and spoke to me to the point I wanted to be convinced of before I started down this path," Flood said.

Flood, 35, the speaker of Nebraska's Legislature, was able last spring to get the law passed that outlaws such an early-pregnancy abortion -- previously, the earliest was 22-24 weeks – unless the woman's life is in danger or to save an additional fetus present in the uterus, the Post reported.

Neither the mother's mental health nor the discovery of problems with the fetus constitute exceptions to the prohibition, the Post reported.

Several state legislatures in 2010 "considered and enacted some of the most extreme restrictions on abortion in recent memory, as well as passing laws creating dozens of other significant new hurdles," the international Center for Reproductive Rights said.

Anti-abortion groups say Flood's bill is model legislation for direct challenges to Supreme Court decisions that limit government's ability to outlaw abortion prior to a fetus's viability outside the uterus, the Post reported.