28-326. Terms, defined.

For purposes of sections 28-325 to 28-345, unless the context otherwise requires:

(1) Abortion means the use or prescription of any instrument, medicine, drug, or other substance or device intentionally to terminate the pregnancy of a woman known to be pregnant with an intention other than to increase the probability of a live birth, to preserve the life or health of the child after live birth, or to remove a dead unborn child, and which causes the premature termination of the pregnancy;

(2) Complications associated with abortion means any adverse physical, psychological, or emotional reaction that is reported in a peer-reviewed journal to be statistically associated with abortion such that there is less than a five percent probability (P < .05) that the result is due to chance;

(3) Conception means the fecundation of the ovum by the spermatozoa;

(4) Emergency situation means that condition which, on the basis of the physician's good faith clinical judgment, so complicates the medical condition of a pregnant woman as to necessitate the immediate abortion of her pregnancy to avert her death or for which a delay will create serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function;

(5) Hospital means those institutions licensed by the Department of Health and Human Services pursuant to the Health Care Facility Licensure Act;

(6) Negligible risk means a risk that a reasonable person would consider to be immaterial to a decision to undergo an elective medical procedure;

(7) Partial-birth abortion means an abortion procedure in which the person performing the abortion partially delivers vaginally a living unborn child before killing the unborn child and completing the delivery. For purposes of this subdivision, the term partially delivers vaginally a living unborn child before killing the unborn child means deliberately and intentionally delivering into the vagina a living unborn child, or a substantial portion thereof, for the purpose of performing a procedure that the person performing such procedure knows will kill the unborn child and does kill the unborn child;

(8) Physician means any person licensed to practice medicine in this state as provided in the Uniform Credentialing Act;

(9) Pregnant means that condition of a woman who has unborn human life within her as the result of conception;

(10) Probable gestational age of the unborn child means what will with reasonable probability, in the judgment of the physician, be the gestational age of the unborn child at the time the abortion is planned to be performed;

(11) Risk factor associated with abortion means any factor, including any physical, psychological, emotional, demographic, or situational factor, for which there is a statistical association with one or more complications associated with abortion such that there is less than a five percent probability (P < .05) that such statistical association is due to chance. Such information on risk factors shall have been published in any peer-reviewed journals indexed by the United States National Library of Medicine's search services (PubMed or MEDLINE) or in any journal included in the Thomson Reuters Scientific Master Journal List not less than twelve months prior to the day preabortion screening was provided;

(12) Self-induced abortion means any abortion or menstrual extraction attempted or completed by a pregnant woman on her own body;

(13) Ultrasound means the use of ultrasonic waves for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes, specifically to monitor an unborn child;

(14) Viability means that stage of human development when the unborn child is potentially able to live more than merely momentarily outside the womb of the mother by natural or artificial means; and

(15) Woman means any female human being whether or not she has reached the age of majority.

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Cross References

Annotations

Sections 28-326(8), 28-327, 28-333, and 28-343 (1979) regulating abortion were unconstitutional. Womens Services, P.C. v. Thone, 690 F.2d 667 (8th Cir. 1982).

The portions of this statute which require that a woman seeking an abortion indicate in writing that she has been advised of possible alternatives to abortion and of the abortion procedures to be used, does not unduly burden either the woman's decisionmaking process or her obtaining an abortion and, in view of the state's interest in having the information conveyed, the sections are constitutional. Womens Services, P.C. v. Thone, 483 F.Supp. 1022 (D. Neb. 1979).

This section, as far as it requires a woman seeking an abortion to indicate that she has been advised of the reasonably possible medical and mental consequences resulting from an abortion, pregnancy, and childbirth, gives a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice as to the subject matter of the statute and is not void for vagueness. Womens Services, P.C. v. Thone, 483 F.Supp. 1022 (D. Neb. 1979).