A bill seeking to refine New Hampshire’s first-ever abortion ban narrowly passed a House committee after it underwent major changes Tuesday.
State Rep. Beth Folsom said the amended version of House Bill 1609 will specify that abdominal ultrasounds — not ultrasounds that require a camera to be inserted into the vagina — are only required for women seeking an abortion during their last trimester of pregnancy, which she said was the original intention of the law.
Folsom, a Wentworth Republican, was the sponsor of the original fetal protection act that went into effect on Jan. 1. It was passed as part of the state budget process, and bans abortions after 24-weeks of gestation with no exceptions other than for “medical emergencies”.
The law also requires women to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion. Critics and healthcare providers interpreted the law to mean that all pregnant women, regardless of whether they passed the 24-week mark, would need to undergo an ultrasound.
For women in the early stages of pregnancy, internal ultrasounds are often required, which advocates have argued are both invasive and expensive.
“My thought was, let’s fix a misunderstanding,” Folsom said. “That’s what this amendment does: it just clarifies it so there can be no wrong conclusions drawn that they have to do the ultrasound before every abortion.”
This bill was sponsored by fellow Republican Daniel Wolf, proposed more sweeping changes to the fetal protection act. Before it was changed, the bill would have allowed third-trimester abortions for women in cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal anomalies or when the pregnancy is a risk to the mother’s health or life. The bill had also nixed ultrasound requirements for women seeking an abortion before the third-trimester.
The committee voted 11-10 to replace this bill with the amended text, which provides a far more limited set of adjustments to the abortion law.
“HB 1609 as introduced was a step in the right direction to mitigating the harm caused by this onerous law,” said Kayla Montgomery, vice president of Public Policy for Planned Parenthood New Hampshire Action Fund in a statement. “While the House HHS Committee’s action today changed the scope of the bill, we will keep a close eye on it as it moves through the legislative process.”
Two Democrat-sponsored bills to nullify the state’s abortion ban will be heard in Senate committees Wednesday.
At the hearing Tuesday, Wolf had argued the current law’s 24-week deadline unfairly creates an unfair time limit for women to confront traumatic assaults.
“This act does not promote abortion, but respects the life of a mother who has been placed in these rare, unfortunate circumstances,” he said. “How much more are we going to make a girl suffer that has been raped or incestually attacked?”
Keene State Rep. Joe Schapiro said he ultimately voted against the amended bill like most other Democrats on the Health, Human Services & Elderly Affairs Committee because of its failure to address situations like rape and incest.
“That amendment fully clarifies the part about ultrasounds, and I appreciate that, but I will vote against this because of what the amendment doesn’t do,” he said.
Gov. Chris Sununu sent a letter into the committee, expressing support for HB 1609 as it was initially proposed, which would have kept the abortion ban in the last trimester of pregnancy intact.
“These measures are not extreme by any stretch of the imagination,” he said. “These are all or in part consistent with many other states around the nation.”
The governor describes himself as pro-choice, though noted in the letter that he does support a limit on abortions in the seventh, eighth and ninth month of pregnancy.
Many abortion-rights advocates have criticized the governor for failing to veto the budget over the fetal life protection language. Sununu said he didn’t want to shut down the government over the legislation.
“Doing so would have caused Washington style gridlock right here in New Hampshire, and I was not going to allow that to happen,” he wrote in the letter to the committee.
He said the bill presented the opportunity to make “necessary changes” to the state’s law.
Several members of the public spoke in opposition to the bill, many of whom recounted personal experiences of abortion or giving birth to disabled children.
“Although they have a life-threatening condition due to a genetic defect at birth, they have lived full, productive, rich lives,” said Lori Stafford, a mother of two children with muscular dystrophy.
Folsom said this bill would not be the last opportunity for lawmakers to adjust the fetal protection act. Several bills this legislative session tackle issues surrounding abortion, including SB399 which would repeal the fetal protection act all together.