OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — The impact of LB 574 was felt well before the bill had even been signed.
On Monday, about 11 months after Roe v. Wade was overturned, Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen signed Nebraska's 12-week abortion ban into law on Monday. It took effect immediately.
As the bill was passing the Legislature on Friday, Chelsea Souder was working to coordinate a change in plans for three clients with abortions scheduled for early this week that her organization was supporting.
The group, Nebraska Abortion Resources, or NEAR, helps cover the financial barriers to abortion, including travel, childcare, food, as well as the abortion itself. The group started funding abortions in January 2022.
The three clients had appointments at Planned Parenthood, Sounder said, but now must look out of state as they are beyond 12 weeks. With the clients, they discussed what they needed financially to make a trip.
"I think our community is actively supporting our work to be able to help provide that support to folks," Souder said. "But the reality is, regardless of our abortion fund being here or not, there is still going to be a whole host of people who won't be able to access care ... It's really hard for people to find childcare and it's really hard for people to take multiple days off work."
Another barrier, she said, is states where abortion is legal not having sufficient providers. Kansas, she said, is "inundated," so the group most often sends clients to Minnesota, Illinois or Colorado. They sometimes sent clients out of state even before the new law.
"There's only so many clinics and so many providers," Sounder said. "The reality is those states have been building capacity across the country, but we're still not to the point where (those states) can absorb everybody."
Even as a fertility specialist, Elizabeth Constance of Heartland Center for Reproductive Medicine sees a scenario where the law could impact to her work.
While the bill contains exceptions for rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother or prevent bodily harm, Constance points out the bill lacks an exception for lethal fetal anomalies, which are rare. Those include cases of a baby being born without kidneys or a brain, she explained, cases that simply aren't survivable.
"Those things don't get diagnosed until 18-20 weeks," she said, saying the clinic specializing in fertility has seen patients develop a lethal anomaly in highly-desired pregnancies.
"With the new law, they would be forced to carry that pregnancy to term," she said, "With all of the risks of pregnancy ... It's going to delay their ability to come back for fertility treatment. For some women, especially women in their later 30s or 40s ... that delay of six months can be the difference of them getting pregnant again and them not."
She says that might mean needing to collect more embryos before pregnancy.
A Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson said on Monday a guidance letter for healthcare providers was "currently being compiled and made ready for mailing." It was not made available to 3 News Now on Monday.
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