Nebraska governor signs landmark abortion measures

A national abortion-rights group already appeared to be girding for a legal challenge, calling the ban after 20 weeks “flatly unconstitutional’’ because it is based on the assertion that fetuses feel pain, not on the ability of a fetus to survive outside the womb.

“It absolutely cannot survive a challenge without a change to three decades of court rulings,’’ said Nancy Northup, the president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. “Courts have been chipping away at abortion rights . . . this would be like taking a huge hacksaw to the rights.’’

The law focusing on late-term abortions is designed to shut down one of the few doctors in the nation who performs them.

Set to take effect in October, it is based on the claim that fetuses feel pain at 20 weeks. The current standard in abortion restrictions is viability, or when a fetus can survive outside the womb, generally at 22 to 24 weeks.

The law could lead to changes in state laws across the country if upheld by the courts, said Mary Spaulding Balch, legislative director for National Right to Life.

“It would broaden the interests of states in protecting the unborn child,’’ she said. “It says the state has an interest in the unborn child before viability.’’

Heineman also signed the other bill, passed by lawmakers on Monday, that requires the screening for mental health problems and other risk factors indicating whether women might experience problems after having abortions.

The fetal-pain bill is partially meant to shut down Dr. LeRoy Carhart, who attracted attention after his friend and fellow late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was shot to death by an abortion foe in Kansas last year.

Kansas, worried that he might move there, has passed new bills that are awaiting action from Governor Mark Parkinson, an abortion-rights Democrat. They would require doctors to list an exact medical diagnosis justifying a late-term abortion and also adjusts the definition of viability so that a fetus would be considered viable if there’s a “reasonable probability’’ it would survive outside the womb with life-sustaining measures such as an incubator.