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April 17 (UPI) -- Nebraska's Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts has donated $500,000 to a plan to put an abortion ban on November's ballot, according to recent paperwork filed with the state's Accountability and Disclosure Commission. Ricketts, who was governor for two terms from 2015-2023, said in a statement that Nebraska's "commonsense abortion limits reflect our state's strong culture of life."
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His $500,000 donation was to the Protect Women and Children. The group will need 122,000 valid signatures by Nebraska citizens by July 3 in order to get on November's ballot.
"I support the Protect Women and Children ballot initiative because it protects Nebraska values and is a contrast to the extreme initiative the abortion lobby is pushing," Ricketts told The Hill.
State ballot initiatives on abortion are widely expected to drive up the 2024 election turnout as ballot initiatives on abortion have so far largely favored Democrats.
Apart from Rickett's donation to help end abortion in Nebraska, a competing ballot initiative that seeks to protect abortion for up to 24 weeks could also be on November's election ballot.
Seven other states -- California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Ohio and Vermont -- have made abortion legal in their state constitutions.
Nebraska law currently bans abortions after 12 weeks -- with exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother -- but the law is not in Nebraska's constitution.
According to the state's Department of Health, in 2022 there were 2,547 abortions performed in Nebraska that year and of those, slightly over 92% were at 13 weeks or earlier.
The former governor was appointed to the senate in 2023 by Gov. Jim Pillen to replace former Republican Sen. Ben Sasse after he resigned.
The proposed constitutional amendment sought by Ricketts would seek to make a ban permanent after the first trimster, roughly 12 weeks.
The group sponsoring the measure to keep abortion legal, Protect Our Rights, said, "Decisions about pregnancy and abortion belong to Nebraskans, not politicians."
"From the start, it has been clear that anti-abortion groups and politicians who want to totally ban abortion will pull out all the stops to try to confuse voters and attempt to stop Nebraskans from protecting their rights this fall," the group said, adding how Ricketts' donation "is just more proof of that."
The group likewise reported raising $473,000 through March 26 in the latest reporting with donation mostly from other abortion right groups such as Nebraska's ACLU and Planned Parenthood.
An earlier version of this article incorrectly listed Nebraska Family Alliance of Lincoln as an affiliate with the Protect Women and Children organization.
