Nebraska is the only state with two abortion measures on the ballot. Confusion is the point.
Voters in 10 states will weigh in on abortion-rights ballot measures this November, but only Nebraskans will cast ballots on two competing initiatives. Initiative 439 would establish a state constitutional right to abortion up to fetal viability or when necessary to protect the “health or life” of the pregnant patient. Initiative 434, however, would ban abortion in the second and third trimesters, with exceptions for sexual assault, incest, or medical emergencies.
“We hear all the time how confusing the two measures are and folks are very afraid of accidentally checking the wrong one,” said Shelley Mann, the executive director of Nebraska Abortion Resources (NEAR), the only statewide abortion fund in Nebraska.
Much of the confusion surrounding the competing proposals is intentional, and likely a preview of new tactics in the evolving anti-abortion playbook.
Since May 2023, abortion in Nebraska has been banned past the first trimester, and last fall reproductive choice advocates launched a ballot measure campaign to restore and expand access. Anti-abortion leaders introduced a competing measure four months later. (The proposed anti-abortion ballot measure wouldn’t expand current restrictions, but it would embed existing second- and third-trimester bans into Nebraska’s state constitution. This would make it significantly more difficult for the legislature or courts to roll back those restrictions later.)
https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/377639/nebraska-abortion-ballot-measure-trimester-ban-election-reproductive-freedom