By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD – A bill that would keep abortion providers from receiving charitable gaming revenue was heard Monday by the House Ways and Means Committee with supporters saying the practice should not be “subsidized” and opponents saying it would be a politically targeted exclusion.
Sponsored by Republican John Sellers, R-Bristol, House Bill 1338 as introduced restricts abortion providers from the list of charitable organizations in law to read “for purposes of this section, ‘charitable organization’ shall not include an abortion provider.”
Sellers said he was approached by constituents to sponsor the bill and said “providing abortions is not charitable. It kills a life.”
Jason Hennessey, president of the NH Right To Life, agreed and enthusiastically said his organization supports the bill. He said the question is “whether we should be subsidizing it.”
State law allows charities to receive 35 percent of the revenue from table games and 8.75% from historic horse racing machines.
Abortion in New Hampshire is legal for the first two trimesters of a pregnancy. Gov. Kelly Ayotte has said she does not support changes to the current law as it relates to abortion.
Jinelle Hall, executive director of Equality Health Center in Concord, said her organization has been an independent provider of reproductive health services for over 50 years and meets all the criteria for a charitable organization.
She said the bill would exclude and amounts to “politically targeted exclusion.”
Sandra Denoncour, executive director of Lovering Health Center in Greenland, who noted they are one of two organizations targeted by the bill warned there could be a broader impact by the bill with unintended consequences and some members of the committee noted to Hennessey that future legislatures might find NH Right To Life an unacceptable charitable organization and deny it receiving such funding in the future.
The decision on who gets the gamblers’ spending is not political and is up to the casino operators, the committee was told.