By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD – The state’s new controversial abortion ban, known as the Fetal Life Protection Act, got the attention of members of the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday with an effort sponsored by Republicans to add an exception for fatal fetal anomalies to 24-week abortion ban.
The hearing on House Bill 1609, which passed the House last month, included testimony from the prime sponsor, Rep. Dan Wolf, R-Newbury, who read testimony from a family now dealing with this issue.
He thanked all the women who have shared “heartbreaking stories” with lawmakers, including the devastating news they have learned at or after 20 weeks that the nursery that they have created will not be occupied by the child they are carrying and that by law they have to carry the unviable fetus to term.
“These are diagnoses are not about a child with disabilities whatsoever,” he said. “It is about a fetus that is not viable, who cannot survive outside the womb.”
He shared the story of Lisa Akey, a woman from Brookline who wrote him that before this law passed she had no idea why anyone would want or need an abortion at such a late stage. Until she found herself in that very position, right now.
Reading her testimony, Wolf said she said she found that one of the two twins she was carrying at 21 weeks, was not viable.
Today, she is 29 weeks along and has been admitted to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon to await the birth of both Lily June and Iris Hope, the names chosen.
On April 29, said she will have a C-section birth and expects the girls will be born. Lily June will go to the neonatal intensive care unit after birth and Iris Hope will be able to be held as long as possible until she passes.
The journey, she wrote, has put government in the exam room with them and made the process much worse.
For the last 50 years, she wrote, Granite Staters had rights to make those decisions in private with their doctor but not now.
“This shows the unintended consequences,” Wolf said, of the new laws.
He said he agreed with former Supreme Court Chief Justice Bob Lynn, now a legislator, who in another hearing on a bill spoke in support that this is just too much for government to step in and say “‘you will have the baby.'”
Republican and Grafton County State Rep. Matthew Simon opposed the bill. He asked the Committee to kill the bill and leave the law as it is.
He said there are times when doctors make misdiagnoses on whether or not a child is viable.
“We are questioning the reason and the necessity of killing the child,” he said, “when the result is the same.”
Dr. Danielle Albushies, a Bedford OB/GYN, said she supported the bill and noted the difficulties of having to ask a woman to carry the fetus to term knowing that it could not survive.
The current law which went into effect in January requires the ultrasound at every stage of the pregnancy and ” shames women” and takes away family options in complex circumstances, said Kayla Montgomery, spokesman for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England.
“While we believe the abortion ban should be struck in its entirety, we are grateful a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers is listening…and working to mitigate some of the harm,” Montgomery wrote in a statement.
Governor Chris Sununu expressed “strong support” in a letter to the committee today. If passed and signed by Gov. Sununu, the effective date for the law would be immediately upon it passage.
A similar bill which has already passed the Senate relative to limiting the fetal ultrasound requirements, SB 399 will be the subject of a public hearing on Wednesday at 9 a.m. in Representatives Hall before the House Judiciary Committee.
Cornerstone Action of NH, which opposes SB 399, charged that Republican House leadership is in support of the bill and called for change in this letter.
