By GARRY RAYNO, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD — A 20-week abortion ban would criminalize health care providers and pregnant women, drive more physicians from the state and cause needless death and injury, a House committee was told Wednesday.
Those opposing House Bill 1590 filled the legislative hearing room and also the House’s electronic system which registered 1,695 in opposition and only 16 in favor.
HB 1590 effectively bans abortion access in New Hampshire after 20 weeks gestation aligning the fetal protection act which sets personhood at 20 weeks, giving the fetus the same rights as a born person, with the state’s criminal statutes.
Currently the state bans abortions after the 24th week of pregnancy.
The prime sponsor of HB 1590, Rep. Kevin Scully, R-Nashua, said his bill is not about abortion, but about civil rights and repairing the conflict between the two statutes.
There are no exceptions, he said, ending the life of a fetus after 20 weeks is homicide.
With the change, health care providers could be charged with capital murder if they violate the law, which is punishable by life in prison without parole.
Under the bill’s content, a woman could also be charged with homicide if she has an abortion after the 20-week period and it is done without a medical emergency or if her life were not at risk.
Scully was asked why he chose 20 weeks instead of 24 weeks to harmonize the two statues, and he said, the 24-week figure is from the Roe vs Wade law, and since that is no longer the law of the land he chose the 20-week limit in the fetal protection act.
“We should keep the date, the precedent is set,” Scully said. “We should not start thinking we can exclude people from the concept of personhood for political convenience.”
But opponents to the plan said there is no reason to align the two statutes as many other areas of law have different dates such as voting at 18 years old and buying alcohol at 21 years old.
Many health care providers testified in opposition to the bill, many saying the politicians should not interfere with complicated medical decisions that should be between the woman, her family and her doctor.
Longtime Concord physician Oge Young said the bill would be a challenge to the care physicians often provide to pregnant women around 19 or 20 weeks when a pregnancy goes wrong.
They get the fetus out and let the parents hold it until the final breath, he said.
“Should we have to worry about criminal charges in these cases?” he asked.
Young said lawmakers know nothing about pregnancy in those instances.
“You should have no voice in the choices of pregnant patients,” Young told the committee.
Amy Agostino, a nurse from Londonderry, said only 1 percent of abortions are performed after 20 weeks, and those are usually medical emergencies.
Due to rampant misinformation, lay people often think abortion means that some woman gets irresponsibly pregnant, perhaps repeatedly, and decides to just “get an abortion” as a casual form of birth control, she said, and doctors and health care facilities blithely roll along with that. “Health care facilities are not fast food drive-thrus,” Agostino said. “You cannot just go up to the window, order an abortion procedure, and be told, ‘That will be this many dollars. Drive on up and have a nice day!’”
Any pregnancy termination happening after 20 weeks — one percent of all abortions, remember — is due to a severe and unforeseen medical complication, she said.
Jean Brown of Hanover, said the state’s governing body has set itself up as medical experts on women’s health.
“It is reprehensible to threaten doctors with jail time for performing an abortion,” Brown said. “Pregnancy is just too complicated and unpredictable for a one-size fits all abortion law.”
Doctors deserve trust and respect and women deserve support, she told the House Judiciary Committee.
A number of physicians and residents spoke to the committee to oppose the bill.
They warned the committee New Hampshire offers doctors the least protection in New England against legal challenges from other states with more restrictive abortion laws and warned about what other states are doing and the moral and ethical decisions that have to be made.
One Dartmouth Hitchcock resident, Amy Lee, told the committee she has learned a lot in her New Hampshire residency but she will not be staying in New Hampshire when she is done.
“Personally, I am leaving New Hampshire. For the past few years no residents are staying,” Lee said. “I feel bad about it because New Hampshire has given me so much in training, but I am going to a state where I am protected and there will be no felony charges coming at me.”
Kayla Montgomery, Vice President of Public Affairs for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, said the bill would blow the door open to charging a woman with murder if something went wrong with her pregnancy, noting in Kentucky this month a woman who miscarried at home was charged with murder.
“Granite Staters don’t want to criminalize medical care or threaten patients and doctors, and we certainly don’t want women suffering from miscarriages or stillbirths to be investigated and charged with homicide,” Montgomery said. “We have different laws for crimes and medical care because pregnancy is not and should never be a crime. This bill serves no medical purpose and is confusing, cruel, and completely unnecessary.”
The committee did not make an immediate recommendation on the bill.
Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.