(1) Except as otherwise provided in the Nebraska Fair Employment Practice Act, it shall not be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to apply different standards of compensation, or different terms, conditions, or privileges of employment pursuant to a bona fide seniority or merit system or a system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production or to employees who work in different locations, if such differences are not the result of an intention to discriminate because of race, color, religion, sex, disability, marital status, or national origin, nor shall it be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to give and to act upon the results of any professionally developed ability test if such test, its administration, or action upon the results is not designed, intended, or used to discriminate because of race, color, religion, sex, disability, marital status, or national origin.

It shall not be an unlawful employment practice for a covered entity to deny privileges of employment to an individual with a disability when the qualification standards, tests, or selection criteria that screen out or tend to screen out or otherwise deny a job or benefit to an individual with a disability:

(a) Have been shown to be job-related and consistent with business necessity and such performance cannot be accomplished by reasonable accommodation, as required by the Nebraska Fair Employment Practice Act and the federal Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; or

(b) Include a requirement that an individual shall not pose a direct threat, involving a significant risk to the health or safety of other individuals in the workplace, that cannot be eliminated by reasonable accommodation.

It shall not be an unlawful employment practice to refuse employment based on a policy of not employing both husband and wife if such policy is equally applied to both sexes.

(2) Except as otherwise provided in the Nebraska Fair Employment Practice Act, women affected by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions shall be treated the same for all employment-related purposes, including receipt of employee benefits, as other persons not so affected but similar in their ability or inability to work, and nothing in this section shall be interpreted to provide otherwise.

This section shall not require an employer to provide employee benefits for abortion except when medical complications have arisen from an abortion.

Nothing in this section shall preclude an employer from providing employee benefits for abortion under fringe benefit programs or otherwise affect bargaining agreements in regard to abortion.