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 Parent Advocate 2009

LB 824—On January 18, by a vote of 40-5, this bill was advanced to the second stage of floor debate. The bill’s chief sponsor, Senator Mike Foley of Lincoln, worked diligently with several other lawmakers to amend the original version of the bill in a way that would garner additional support to ensure its advancement, while also preserving the underlying purpose and intent of the proposal. By virtue of amendment, the bill now proposes the Homicide of the Unborn Child Act. It will recognize and protect the humanity of the unborn child at all stages of gestation and establish specific crimes of homicide for killing an unborn child, outside the context of abortion.

On February 4, by a vote of 41-6, LB 824 was advanced to the third stage of floor action, which is known as Final Reading. At this stage a vote on final passage of the bill will take place. That is expected to happen sometime within the next two weeks. Further debate and changes to the bill are still possible; however the bill would have to be returned to Select File for consideration of a specific amendment, requiring at least 25 votes; then the amendment would be considered and 25 votes would be required to adopt it, and then 25 votes would be required to re-advance the bill to Final Reading.

Senators who voted to advance the Homicide of the Unborn Child Act to Final Reading were the following: Aguilar, Baker, Beutler, Bourne, Brashear, Brown, Bruning, Burling, Byars, Connealy, Coordsen, Cudaback, Cunningham, Dierks, Engel, Erdman, Foley, Hartnett, Hudkins, Janssen, Jensen, Jones, Kremer, Kristensen, Kruse, Maxwell, McDonald, Dwite Pedersen, Preister, Quandahl, Redfield, Robak, Schrock, Smith, Stuhr, Suttle, Synowiecki, Thompson, Tyson, Vrtiska and Wehrbein.

Voting against advancement of LB 824 were Senators Chambers, Landis, Price, Raikes, Schimek and Wickersham. Senators Bromm and Don Pederson were excused.

During the action at the second stage, which is Select File, Senator Foley agreed to two technical modifications that improved the bill. All attempts to weaken the bill were rejected. The most serious threat to the integrity of the bill was an amendment offered by Senator Ron Raikes of Lincoln. It would have changed the title of the offense from "homicide of the unborn child to "criminal termination of pregnancy." It would have turned the policy impact of LB 824 upside down by failing to acknowledge that a violent, nonconsensual act perpetrated against a pregnant woman leaves two victims, mother and child. While it tacitly recognized what takes place when an unborn child is killed, its true colors were exposed by the fact that it avoided defining the key term, "termination of pregnancy." Of course, in order to do so in an intellectually honest manner it would have had to acknowledge the existence of another human life, in addition to the pregnant woman. The result of its verbal contortions was that it proposed to define and punish as crimes equivalent to murder or manslaughter aggressors’ acts terminating pregnancy even if the acts do not cause the death of an unborn child. In other words, it would have created crimes with penalties the same as murder and manslaughter, but without any requirement that anyone (or anything) be killed.

Only 11 senators joined Senator Raikes in voting for his bizarre amendment. They were: Brown, Chambers, Connealy, Janssen, Kruse, Landis, Price, (Raikes), Schimek, Suttle, Thompson and Wickersham.

These 27 senators voted with Senator Foley to reject that amendment: Aguilar, Baker, Brashear, Bromm, Bruning, Burling, Byars, Coordsen, Cunningham, Dierks, Engel, Erdman, Hudkins, Jensen, Kremer, Dwite Pedersen, Quandahl, Redfield, Robak, Schrock, Smith, Stuhr, Synowiecki, Tyson, Vrtiska and Wehrbein. Senators Cudaback, Hartnett, Don Pederson and Preister were present, but did not vote. Senators Beutler, Bourne, Jones, Kristensen, Maxwell and McDonald were excused.

Senator David Landis of Lincoln offered another amendment that was similar to, but less sweeping than Senator Raikes’ amendment. It too was soundly defeated.

The five legislators who voted against passing LB 824 were Ernie Chambers, Marian Price, Ron Raikes, DiAnna Schimek and Bob Wickersham. Senators David Landis and Cap Dierks were excused.