Nebraska is the latest state to add abortion to November ballots. What would the measures do?

Competing abortion measures to expand or limit abortion rights will be on the November ballot in Nebraska after election officials on Friday confirmed each side had turned in enough signatures.

The move makes Nebraska the first state to carry competing abortion amendments on the same ballot since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, launching a national push to have voters decide.

Measures to protect access have already qualified to go before voters this year in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and South Dakota. New York also has a ballot measure that proponents say would protect abortion rights, though there’s a dispute about its impact.

Still, there also have been legal fights across the country over whether to allow voters to decide these questions — and the exact words used on the ballots and explanatory material. Earlier this week, Arkansas' highest court upheld a decision to keep an abortion rights ballot initiative off the state’s November ballot, agreeing with election officials that the group behind the measure did not properly submit documentation regarding the signature gatherers it hired.

Most Republican-controlled states have passed abortion restrictions since the 2022 ruling, including 14 that ban abortion at every stage of pregnancy. Most Democratic-led states have laws or executive orders to protect access.

Voters in all seven states that have had abortion questions before voters since 2022 have sided with abortion rights supporters.

NEBRASKA

Nebraska's secretary of state announced Friday that the state's November ballot will include two competing abortion measures.

One of the initiatives, like measures on ballots elsewhere in the U.S., would enshrine in the state constitution the right to have an abortion until viability or later to protect the health of the pregnant woman.

The other measure would write into the constitution the current 12-week ban, with exceptions for rape, incest and to save the life of the pregnant woman.

MONTANA

Montana’s secretary of state has confirmed that an abortion question qualified for its ballot.

If it passes, it would amend the state constitution to bar the government from denying the right to abortion before viability — generally considered to be about 23 or 24 weeks’ gestational age — or when it is necessary to protect the life or health of the pregnant person.

Abortion is already legal until viability in the state under a 1999 Montana Supreme Court opinion.

ARIZONA

Voters in Arizona will decide in November whether to amend the state constitution to add the right to an abortion up to about 24 weeks into pregnancy. The Arizona secretary of state’s office said on Aug. 12 that it had certified enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot.

The state’s top court has weighed in on the details multiple times. It ruled that an informational pamphlet can refer to an embryo or fetus as an “unborn human being” even though that language isn’t in the amendment and won’t appear on the ballot itself.

The amendment would prevent Arizona from banning abortions before a fetus can survive outside the womb and would allow later abortions to protect a woman’s physical or mental health. Opponents say this goes too far and could lead to unlimited and unregulated abortions in Arizona. Supporters say it would keep abortion access free from political interference.

Abortion is currently legal for the first 15 weeks of pregnancy in Arizona.

COLORADO

Colorado’s top election official confirmed in May that a measure to enshrine abortion protections in the state constitution, along with requirements that Medicaid and private health insurers cover abortion, made the ballot for the fall election.

Amending the state constitution requires the support of 55% of voters.

Abortion is already legal at all stages of pregnancy in Colorado.

FLORIDA

The state Supreme Court ruled in April that a measure to legalize abortion until viability could go on the ballot despite a legal challenge from the state. Attorney General Ashley Moody had argued that there are differing views on the meaning of “viability” and that some key terms in the proposed measure are not properly defined.

To pass, the measure needs support from at least 60% of voters, a high threshold that supporters hope to reach after collecting nearly a million signatures on the petition to get it on the ballot.

Abortion is currently illegal in Florida after the first six weeks of pregnancy under a law that took effect May 1.

MARYLAND

Maryland voters also will be asked this year to enshrine the right to abortion in the state’s constitution. Abortion is already allowed in Maryland until viability.

MISSOURI

Missouri voters will decide whether to guarantee a right to abortion with a constitutional amendment that would reverse the state’s near-total ban.

The secretary of state’s office certified on Aug. 13 that an initiative petition received more than enough signatures from registered voters to qualify. It will need approval from a majority of voters to become enshrined in the state constitution.

The Missouri ballot measure would create a right to abortion until “there is a significant likelihood of the fetus’s sustained survival outside the uterus without the application of extraordinary medical measures.” The ballot measure would allow abortions after fetal viability if a health care professional determines it’s necessary to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant woman.

NEVADA

The Nevada Secretary of State’s office announced in June that a ballot question to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution met all the requirements to appear in front of voters in November.

This amendment would ensure abortion access for the first 24 weeks of pregnancy — or later to protect the health of the pregnant woman. To change the constitution, voters would need to approve it in 2024 and again in 2026.

Abortion up until viability is already allowed in Nevada under a law passed in 1990.

SOUTH DAKOTA

South Dakota voters will decide this fall on a constitutional amendment that would prevent any restrictions on abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy.

The measure would allow the state in the second trimester to “regulate the pregnant woman’s abortion decision and its effectuation only in ways that are reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman.” Abortion could be prohibited in the third trimester, provided there are exceptions for the life and health of the woman.

Opponents have sued to try to take the initiative off the ballot or block results from being counted. A trial on the challenge could be held in September.

While not preserving a right to abortion by name, a reproductive rights question is on the ballot in New York.

The measure would bar unequal treatment based on “pregnancy outcomes” and “reproductive healthcare and autonomy,” along with sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin and disability.

Proponents say it would protect abortion access, which is currently allowed in New York until fetal viability. Democrats sued to have the word “abortion” added to a description of the ballot measure given to voters, but a judge on Friday declined to do so, saying that it isn’t clear yet how the amendment, if passed, will be interpreted by the courts.

The Board of Elections must certify what’s on the ballot by Sept. 11.

There have been twists and turns to get the question before voters. It was on the ballot, then removed in May by a judge who found lawmakers missed a procedural step when they put it there. An appeals court reinstated it in June.

FILE - Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen attends the summer conference of the National Association of Secretaries of State in Baton Rouge, La., July 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton, File)

FILE - Patrons of the Gallatin County Fairgrounds wait in line to cast their ballots in Bozeman, Mont., Nov. 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Tommy Martino, File)

FILE - The Montana State Capitol is shown on July 13, 2020, in Helena, Mont. (Thom Bridge/Independent Record via AP, File)

FILE - Arizona abortion-rights supporters gather for a news conference prior to delivering more than 800,000 petition signatures to the state Capitol to get abortion rights on the November general election ballot, July 3, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)

FILE - Abortion-rights supporters take part in a protest, May 30, 2019, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

Arizona and Missouri will join 5 other states with abortion on the ballot. Who are the others?

Arizona and Missouri will join 5 other states with abortion on the ballot. Who are the others?

BOSTON (AP) — A study that explores the feasibility of using pigeons to guide missiles and one that looks at the swimming abilities of dead fish were among the winners Thursday of this year’s Ig Nobels, the prize for comical scientific achievement.

Held less than a month before the actual Nobel Prizes are announced, the 34th annual Ig Nobel prize ceremony at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was organized by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine’s website to make people laugh and think. Winners received a transparent box containing historic items related to Murphy’s Law — the theme of the night — and a nearly worthless Zimbabwean $10 trillion bill. Actual Nobel laureates handed the winners their prizes.

“While some politicians were trying to make sensible things sound crazy, scientists discovered some crazy-sounding things that make a lot of sense,” Marc Abrahams, master of ceremonies and editor of the magazine, said in an e-mail interview.

The ceremony started with Kees Moliker, winner of 2003 Ig Noble for biology, giving out safety instructions. His prize was for a study that documented the existence of homosexual necrophilia in mallard ducks.

“This is the duck,” he said, holding up a duck. “This is the dead one.”

After that, someone came on stage wearing a yellow target on their chest and a plastic face mask. Soon, they were inundated with people in the audience throwing paper airplanes at them.

Then, the awards began — several dry presentations which were interrupted by a girl coming on stage and repeatedly yelling “Please stop. I'm bored.” The awards ceremony was also was broken up by an international song competition inspired by Murphy's Law, including one about coleslaw and another about the legal system.

The winners were honored in 10 categories, including for peace and anatomy. Among them were scientists who showed a vine from Chile imitates the shapes of artificial plants nearby and another study that examined whether the hair on people's heads in the Northern Hemisphere swirled in the same direction as someone's hair in the Southern Hemisphere.

Other winners include a group of scientists who showed that fake medicine that causes side effects can be more effective than fake medicine that doesn't cause side effects and one showing that some mammals are cable of breathing through their anus — winners who came on stage wearing a fish-inspired hats.

Julie Skinner Vargas accepted the peace prize on behalf of her late father B.F. Skinner, who wrote the pigeon-missile study. Skinner Vargas is also the head of the B.F. Skinner Foundation.

“I want to thank you for finally acknowledging his most important contribution,” she said. “Thank you for putting the record straight.”

James Liao, a biology professor at the University of Florida, accepted the physics prize for his study demonstrating and explaining the swimming abilities of a dead trout.

“I discovered that a live fish moved more than a dead fish but not by much,” Liao said, holding up a fake fish. “A dead trout towed behind a stick also flaps its tail to the beat of the current like a live fish surfing on swirling eddies, recapturing the energy in its environment. A dead fish does live fish things.”

Professor James Liao displays a stuffed fish while accepting a prize for physics for demonstrating and explaining the swimming abilities of a dead trout during a performance at the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

A team of researchers perform a demonstration during a performance showing that many mammals are capable of breathing through their anus while accepting the 2024 Ig Nobel prize in physiology at the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Mass., Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

People in the audience throw paper airplanes toward the stage during a performance at the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

FILE - Students walk past the "Great Dome" atop Building 10 on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in Cambridge, Mass, April 3, 2017. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)