By Dave Andrusko

Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning

Citing a preliminary injunction handed down by U.S. District Judge Laurie Smith Camp, Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning announced yesterday that he had agreed to a permanent federal injunction against a law intended to provide women with information about abortion's risks and alternatives.

In explaining the attorney general's decision, a spokeswoman for Bruning said, "Losing this case would require Nebraska taxpayers to foot the bill for Planned Parenthood's legal fees." Shannon Kingery added, "We will not squander the state's resources on a case that has very little probability of winning."

Nebraska Right to Life and the Nebraska Catholic Conference concurred with Bruning's decision not to continue to challenge the preliminary injunction against Legislative Bill 594.

State Sen. Cap Dierks of Ewing, the law's sponsor, told the World-Herald he would try again next year. "If we can make the bill take care of the unconstitutionally vague language that they talk about, I'm glad to try that," Dierks said.

As a result, all eyes are now on Nebraska's historic "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act." Nebraska RTL executive director Julie Schmit-Albin told the Associated Press that if pro-abortionists challenge Legislative Bill 1103, "We are confident that the attorney general will vigorously defend any attack on that law."

Passed by the unicameral Nebraska legislature on a 44-5 vote, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act means "You don't kill unborn children capable of feeling pain," in the words Mary Spaulding Balch, NRLC's State Legislative Director.

The Nebraska legislature, basing its conclusion on an enormous body of medical research, sets the demarcation at 20 weeks.

Planned Parenthood of the Heartland had challenged the health screening bill last month in U.S. District Court in Omaha. In her preliminary injunction, Judge Camp said LB 594 was likely unconstitutional because it set up "extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible" standards on doctors and placed "substantial, likely insurmountable" obstacles in the way of women seeking abortions, " according to the Associated Press.

The question before the house now is whether pro-abortionists will challenge the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Act, which is scheduled to go into effect October 15. After pro-life Gov. Dave Heineman signed the bill into law April 13, pro-abortionists made noises about taking the law to court.

For example, the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights, based in New York, said a letter to Gov. Heineman that

"This bill is clearly unconstitutional and is the most extreme abortion law passed in this country in recent memory." But pressed for comment yesterday, Center spokeswoman Dionne Scott said no decision had been made.

"Calls to [abortionist LeRoy] Carhart were directed to the center," the Associated Press reported. Carhart has been intimately involved in two abortion cases which reached the Supreme Court.