Deb Fischer flip-flops on rape and incest abortion exceptions

Plus, how Project 2025 can help Trump realize his new deportation regime.

In a recent New York Times profile on one of Nebraska’s two Senate races, Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer (R) is noted as supporting “exceptions to an abortion ban for cases of rape and incest and to protect the life of the mother.” She had also made similar remarks in an interview conducted earlier this month. However, previous comments by Fischer in the past contradict her statements. 

While Fischer has consistently supported an exception concerning a mother’s life, she has not always called for such legal framework for rape and incest. In 2012, as a member of the Nebraska Legislature, Fischer was said not to believe in “exceptions should be made for victims of either rape of incest,” according to the Omaha World-Herald. Such statements were made in contrast with then-Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who did back such exceptions. 

And in 2018, well into her career as a United States senator, Fischer responded to a questionnaire created by Nebraska chapter of the National Right to Life Committee, wherein she marked herself as not supporting exceptions for rape and incest. And in the 2024 version of this guide, Fischer declined to mark an answer on the same question. 

Abortion is expected to be a contentious issue in the state due to two ballot measures: One would create a constitutional right to abortion, and the other would create a constitutional ban after 14 weeks of pregnancy. Currently, Nebraska law permits the procedure at 12 weeks but allows for rape, incest and the life of the mother as exceptions.

As the final stretch of election season gets underway, we’ll be unpacking one of the most urgent storylines from the 2024 Presidential race: Project 2025. Over the next three weeks, The Lede will be analyzing how this comprehensive guidebook to a possible Trump presidency will impact key aspects of American life, from reproductive and labor rights to housing and immigration policy.

Today we’ll be unpacking how Project 2025 will shape immigration. 

While restrictive and punitive immigration policy has long been associated with the MAGA wing of the Republican Party, Project 2025 would accent the already extreme positions that a second Trump term would initiate. 

On the campaign trail, Trump and his acolytes have called for mass deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants. However, the framework underlying such a task would undoubtedly result in the separation of families and the removal of countless legal immigrants. According to Project 2025, the goal is to undo current Department of Homeland Security trends, which the manifesto claims is helping “migrants criminally enter our country with impunity.”

Project 2025's most clear diversion from President Joe Biden’s immigration policy is the weaponization of “expedited removal,” a legal tool deployed primarily at the border as a means to deport an immigrant located in any of the 50 states. Additionally, according to The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, this would mean “raids in sensitive zones like schools, hospitals, and religious institutions.” 

This would also mean that those charged with doing anything from overstaying a visa to illegally crossing the U.S. border could be expelled from the country without trial. Limitations on legal rights are intentional, as Project 2025 also proposes slashing legal funding provided to asylum seekers by the federal government. 

Expedition and lack of habeas corpus will inevitably lead to the expansion of detention centers, which Project 2025 purposes should be capable of housing 100,000 migrants at any given time. To assist in this process, the document suggests “using military personnel and hardware” to enforce such a program. Additionally, state and local law enforcement who refuse to contribute to this deportation effort will be penalized. 

Working in tangent these policies would be the means by which the expulsion of some 15 million people from the United States would hypothetically be conducted. Not only would this undertaking violate an innumerable number of human and constitutional rights, but it would be physically and fiscally difficult: It would do everything from “uprooting” the U.S. food system to costing the federal government billions of dollars while subtracting billions of dollars in tax revenue that immigrants provide.