Nebraska committee advances bill requiring burial or cremation for aborted babies

A pro-life bill that would treat aborted babies with the dignity of any other human life is advancing in Nebraska.

The state’s Health and Human Services Committee voted 5-0 to advance a bill that would require any abortion provider to cremate or bury the remains of aborted babies. If neither is possible, the State Board of Health would direct the provider on proper disposal.

Sen. Ben Hansen, R-Blair, said he filed LB 632 to give respect to babies who lose their lives. 

“All of us understand the horror that is felt when a human body has been subjected to indignity, desecration or neglect,” Hansen testified at a committee hearing, according to the Nebraska Examiner. “Both reasons – public and environmental health and the basic respect to the bodies of the dead – are as applicable to the tissue and blood of children who have died by elective abortions as to babies who have died from natural causes.” 

However, Andi Curry Grubb, executive director of Planned Parenthood North Central States, disagreed, saying the measure would effectively create a funeral requirement for all abortions. 

“It does nothing other than burden abortion providers and patients, shame and stigmatize care, and further remove patients’ control over their own health,” she testified. “All of these issues highlight that this bill is unserious and simply a political statement.” 

But Sen. Dan Lonowski, R-Hastings, contended that Planned Parenthood’s testimony diminished the value of the lives lost from abortions. 

“Just to dispose of aborted remains in a haphazard way, I think it just lowers the dignity and the respect we should have for all human life,” he said. 

Similarly, the committee voted 4-2 to advance a proposal from Sen. Rick Holdcroft, R-Bellevue, that would require doctors to screen ectopic pregnancies and schedule follow-up appointments between three and 28 days after prescribing chemical abortion pills. 

While Holdcroft doesn’t think LB 512 will come up for a vote this year, he said he filed it because he wants to keep women safe. 

“We’re going to just look for an opportunity on the floor to possibly amend it to a like bill and see what can be done there,” Holdcroft told the Nebraska Examiner. “Otherwise, we’ll carry it over to next year.” 

The measure comes as pro-life advocates are demanding an investigation into Planned Parenthood over the death of a Nebraska woman who traveled to Colorado for a second-trimester abortion, Catholic Vote reports. 

Nebraska allows abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy. Nebraskans voted 55% to 45% in favor of a ballot question last November to bar elective abortion in the second and third trimesters. The same voters also narrowly defeated a question that would have created a right to abortion until around 24 weeks of pregnancy, with 51% rejecting it.