By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD – Just two days after a leaked U.S. Supreme Court draft decision indicating Roe v. Wade is set to be overturned, reproductive health care was on the top of elected officials’ minds.
And on Wednesday, the New Hampshire House of Representatives voted multiple times against efforts to add proactive protections for abortion access before 24-weeks to New Hampshire’s state statute and constitution. The draft majority opinion, written by Justice Alito, openly overrules Roe and Casey, stating that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start” and “we hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled.”?
Kayla Montgomery, VP of Public Affairs for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, said: “The majority of the House of Representatives’ continued refusal to even consider legislation to protect access to safe, legal abortion in New Hampshire is nothing short of an insult to Granite Staters, especially given this week’s shocking draft Supreme Court decision decimating abortion rights and overturning Roe v. Wade.
“While abortion remains safe and legal before 24-weeks in New Hampshire – for now – we are the only state in New England that does not have proactive protections for abortion rights enshrined in state statutes. We are an island and Granite Staters’ rights are on the line in the future,” Montgomery said.
NH ABORTION LIMITS
Gov. Chris Sununu was asked about the state’s new abortion ban after 24 weeks which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2022. Legislation is headed to his desk which will amend the law to address some concerns providers and patients have raised.
Sununu said he did not support many provisions of the ban, like criminalizing health care providers, from the beginning but needed to sign the bill as it was part of the state’s biennial budget. He said he fought to remove ultrasound provisions in every stage of a woman’s pregnancy as a provision for a late-term abortion and that was passed.
“It was a close vote and we had to make a lot of phone calls to get that done,” he said, noting he was pleased that the Legislature has approved measures that make exceptions for allowing late-term abortions in the case of fetal anomalies in which the fetus cannot survive outside the womb.
“I would have liked to have seen some other exceptions in there for rape and incest and the decriminalization of doctors and all that. But I made a commitment after that was put into the budget last year that I would fight to make adjustments to expand access and options for women in making that health care choice and we did it. Can we make more steps? Sure. Can we do more? Sure,” he said.
Sununu said these were “first strides and we can take more strides down the road.”
Asked if he would support anti-abortion candidates in the upcoming election season, he said he makes his endorsements not based on single issues.
He has said New Hampshire will remain a pro-choice state while he is governor and said the 24-week abortion ban is considered common sense by many.
Asked about the potential for Roe v. Wade to be overturned by the high court this spring, and its impact on the Granite State, Sununu said the situation in New Hampshire does not change.
“A woman’s right to have that choice is still in place as it was yesterday and will be tomorrow,” he said.
Sen. Tom Sherman, D-Rye, a physician who is running against Sununu for governor, said, “In 2019, Governor Sununu vetoed a budget that included $138 million in increased education funding and $40 million in property tax relief. In 2021, Governor Sununu signed a budget that required invasive and unnecessary ultrasounds, criminalized doctors, and took away a woman’s right to make medical decisions with her doctor without any exceptions for rape, incest, or fatal fetal anomaly.
“Women throughout New Hampshire have been advocating to roll back some of the damage of the ban he signed, and now the Governor is trying to take credit for their work. Sununu’s already shown the women of New Hampshire that he can’t be trusted to stand up for them,” Sherman said.
FAMILY PLANNING CONTRACTS
Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington, the Concord Democrat, and Sununu are the only ones at the Executive Council table who supported the state’s contracts for providers of abortion, even though that money cannot be used for abortions.
Wednesday, Warmington asked the governor to bring back those contracts each time they meet and to make the fellow councilors accountable to the public for their vote.
Sununu said he would wait to see if there was any movement and he has not yet heard from any of the councilors that they are willing to change their vote.
“If we can get them to a ‘yes’ vote, absolutely,” he stated.
EFFORTS TO REVIVE ABORTION RIGHTS BILLS FAIL
Also Wednesday, the New Hampshire House of Representatives rejected multiple efforts to revive legislation that would add abortion rights to state law and New Hampshire’s Constitution (HB 1674 and CACR 18).
“It was very disappointing to see the supposed party of small government and ‘personal freedom’ deny discussion to safeguard reproductive freedom for all Granite Staters,” said Deputy House Democratic Leader Mary Jane Wallner, D-Concord, in a statement. “Sadly, the GOP’s position on this is clear – they voted to repeatedly block discussion of bills safeguarding reproductive freedom, and the Republican Majority Leader even had the audacity to dismiss unprecedented attacks on reproductive freedom as the ‘outrage du jour.’ On the contrary, for hundreds of thousands in New Hampshire, the GOP’s actions are the outrage of the century.”
