Planned Parenthood of the Heartland v. Hilgers

In May 2023, the Nebraska Legislature passed Legislative Bill (“L.B.”) 574. The new law combines two separate sets of harmful provisions: one banning abortion starting at 12 weeks of pregnancy, and another restricting health care for trans youth. Senators forced these provisions together only after they stalled in the Legislature when considered as separate bills. The abortion ban took immediate effect, and the restrictions on health care for trans youth are slated to apply on October 1, 2023.

Planned Parenthood of the Heartland and Dr. Sarah Traxler, who are abortion providers in Nebraska, sued state officials responsible for enforcing L.B. 574 to protect their constitutional rights and the rights of their patients. They are represented by attorneys with the ACLU of Nebraska and the ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative.

The lawsuit argues that L.B. 574 violates the Nebraska Constitution’s single-subject requirement, and that the entire law is therefore void. The single-subject rule, which provides that “[n]o bill shall contain more than one subject,” serves important purposes. It prevents logrolling, whereby measures that cannot gain enactment as individual bills are forced together into a compound bill that secures passage. The single-subject rule also promotes transparency to the public because when a bill has just one subject, no lawmaker can credibly claim that a vote for (or against) that bill was meant to support (or oppose) only part of it.

In July 2024, the Court ruled that the two halves of L.B. 574 fall within the single subject of regulating health care, and thus the Court held that L.B. 574 does not violate the single-subject rule. Consequently, the abortion ban and gender-affirming care restrictions in L.B. 574 remain in effect. However, the Court did reject the state’s argument that the single-subject is a nonjusticiable political question.