NH Senate rejects abortion bills

The New Hampshire Senate today rejected two pro-abortion bills. “Inexpedient to legislate” (ITL) motions on HB 88 and HB 224 were adopted 14-10 along party lines, with Republicans in the majority.

I carry no brief for the GOP, but if your senator is one of those Republicans, I’d say now is the time for a thank-you message.

HB 224 would have nullified the Fetal Life Protection Act, New Hampshire’s 24-week abortion limitation, by removing civil and criminal penalties on providers doing late-term abortions outside of the exceptions outlined in FLPA. HB 88 declared abortion “vital” to liberty and equality, and would have prevented future statutory limitations on abortion.

The votes were the culmination of intense lobbying and public engagement by pro-life Granite Staters. As reported earlier on this blog, the Senate public hearing on HB 224 attracted more than 40 speakers in opposition to the bill. People were rightly concerned.

In all my years of sending out email alerts to Leaven for the Loaf subscribers, I have never seen such high readership and so many forwarded messages as I did for the emails on these bills. People didn’t stop at reading; they acted.

Today’s vote kills the bills and prevents them from proceeding to Governor Sununu’s desk.

I’d like to think that’s it for this year’s abortion nonsense in Concord, but the state budget is now being crafted and the fine print bears watching. Remember that the Fetal Life Protection Act made it into law as a budget item (part of HB 2 in 2021). Just as pro-life policies can be inserted into the budget, so can abortion-friendly policies. I’ll keep an eye on that.

Act Now: Senate to vote Thursday April 13 on abortion expansion bill and “access to abortion care act”

Summary: State senators need messages from their constituents immediately, urging them to vote “inexpedient to legislate” on HB 224 and HB 88.

The New Hampshire Senate is expected to vote Thursday, April 13 on the Judiciary Committee’s recommendation of “inexpedient to legislate” (ITL) on HB 224 and HB 88. The votes will come only two days after the committee’s 3-2 ITL votes along party lines, with Republicans in the majority. 

HB 224 would strip penalties from the Fetal Life Protection Act, preventing late-term-abortion providers from facing any civil or criminal penalties for illegally aborting preborn children after 24 weeks’ gestation. If HB 224 passes, FLPA will be effectively nullified.

HB 88 declares abortion to be “vital” to liberty and equality, and would prevent enactment of any future legislation that would “restrict or interfere with” abortion.

Senators need to get the message before Thursday 4/13: vote ITL on HB 224 and HB 88. The “Who’s My Senator?” link on the General Court website will let you determine your senator’s name and contact information. Let your message be brief, clear, courteous, and immediate. Send a message even if you attended the hearings or used the online testimony system. 

HB 224-FN would expand abortion in New Hampshire, returning us to the days of legal unregulated abortion throughout pregnancy. Instead, voting ITL – inexpedient to legislate – will kill the bill. That’s the way to go.

If HB 88 passes, it would block any future legislation deemed to “restrict or interfere with” abortion. The sponsor calls it the Access to Abortion Care Act. Again, ITL is the right vote.

Do not assume that party lines will hold. Every senator needs to hear from pro-life constituents.

No bargaining: pro-life, period

HB 224 needs to be ITL’d. So does HB 88. Killing one and passing the other and calling that a “compromise” would be an unacceptable outcome. This is no time for horse-trading. Save that for the state budget.

Unlimited abortion as a recruiting tool?

The April 6 committee hearing on HB 224 was packed. The hearing lasted four hours. I stayed for one hour, which was more than enough to get the gist of the pro-HB 224 argument.

Chief sponsor Rep. Dan Wolf (R-Newbury) claimed that his “straightforward” bill was “about attracting [medical] providers” to New Hampshire. “We should not have draconian threats hanging over our doctors,” he said. Dr. Ilana Cass, Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, testified that FLPA makes it harder for her to recruit physicians. Other health care professionals expressed concern over the possibility of being considered criminals. Lobbyists from ACLU and New Futures sang different verses of the same tune.

The essence of the message conveyed by HB 224’s supporters was this: we need to recruit doctors who can abort viable healthy preborn children of healthy mothers, and who will do it with literal impunity – or who will stand by silently while their colleagues do so.

_{Pro-abortion demonstrators pose in front of the State House in Concord, 4/6/23. Ellen Kolb photo.}

Pro-lifers came out in force

Fortunately, the abortion advocates didn’t have the April 6 committee hearing to themselves. A half-hour before the hearing began, the room was already full, with dozens more people in the hallway outside. Once the hearing got underway, more than forty people testified against the bill, far outnumbering speakers in support. Pro-lifers did what they had to do: they turned out in force to defend FLPA and call for the defeat of HB 224. 

Pro-lifers also managed to find their way to the online testimony system, with 1353 people signing in as “opposed” to the bill. 

Even a self-identified pro-choice legislator couldn’t stomach the bill. Rep. Bob Lynn (R-Windham) is a former New Hampshire Supreme Court Justice. Although the House was in session upstairs as the Senate hearing unfolded, Rep. Lynn took time to testify against HB 224, saying “I’m a pro-choice person” but that he wasn’t in favor of making abortion legal until the moment of birth. He said the bill creates “special rules for doctors.” Rep. Lynn was accompanied by his Windham neighbor, Rep. Katelyn Kuttab, who stressed that HB 224 was about “aborting viable healthy babies.”

_{Standing room only outside hearings on HB 224 and HB 88. Ellen Kolb photo.}

HB 88 hearing

The HB 88 hearing didn’t begin until the one for HB 224 had ended on April 6 – meaning it didn’t get started until a little before 6 p.m. Few of the grassroots pro-lifers who had taken time from work and family to come to the State House could stay that long. There’s a danger that senators will look at the relatively low attendance and assume that HB 88 is somehow less offensive than HB 224. 

It’s not. Both bills deserve to be killed decisively.

Senate Judiciary Committee to hold hearing on HB 224 and HB 88 Thursday April 6

Having passed the New Hampshire House, two pro-abortion bills will get a public hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, April 6. The hearing is scheduled for room 100 of the State House in Concord. HB 224-FN is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. and HB 88 for 1:30.

As a practical matter, there’s no way all the testimony on HB 224 -FN will be over in half an hour. I expect the dual hearings to last all afternoon. Showing up for the first hour will be important; there will be sign-up sheets near the door of the hearing room allowing attendees to sign their names & indicate opposition (or support) for each bill.

The bills

HB 224-FN would remove penalties from the Fetal Life Protection Act, New Hampshire’s recently-enacted 24-week abortion limitation. FLPA would thus become unenforceable and useless. HB 88 would declare abortion to be “vital to the equality and liberty of all individuals.” While the text of HB 88 leaves FLPA in place, that won’t matter if FLPA has no enforcement mechanism. HB 224-FN is more dangerous, given Governor Sununu’s expressed willingness to sign it.

In short, HB 224-FN will expand abortion in New Hampshire, returning us to the days of legal unregulated abortion throughout pregnancy.

Both bills ought to be ITL’d: voted “inexpedient to legislate” in committee and on the Senate floor.

What you can do

You can attend the hearing. Allow plenty of time to find parking. Wear good shoes, since you’re likely to be standing in the hall for however long you’re there. The hearing room doesn’t have a large capacity, and no one is allowed inside once the seats are filled – so the hallway will be occupied by people listening to the hearing online.

Right now, register your opinion on the Senate’s online testimony system. You do not have to provide a full statement. Clicking “oppose” is enough. Your name and position on the bill will be visible to the public. The Senate has a handy guide to the online system as well as how to submit testimony in person. Brief, courteous, and clear are always good rules to follow.

Contact your own state senator to express strong opposition to both bills, particularly HB 224-FN. Do not assume Republicans will see things your way; HB 224-FN has Republican co-sponsors. Also, I’ve heard from a voter that her Republican senator told her HB 224 isn’t that big a deal, since late-term abortions don’t happen here anyway.

(She said that with a straight face, despite knowing there’s no requirement to collect and report abortion statistics in New Hampshire. I wasn’t born yesterday. I’ve been around for all the stats bills that have gone down to defeat over the last 20 years or so. But I digress.)

If you email or write to your senator, be sure to mention that you live in that senator’s district. Provide your address for confirmation.

Printable handout with information on HB224-FN and the Senate process

Click on this link for a printable PDF with information on HB 224-FN and with contact information for all 24 senators: https://mcusercontent.com/a2d953b9f956aaa8e14accaac/files/bede0f41-a03b-674d-e64d-8266b3f46731/oppose_HB_224.pdf

Subscribers to the Leaven for the Loaf email updates have this PDF link already. If you’re not receiving the emails, you can sign up here.

40 Days for Life speaker comes to NH: “thank you for your Yes”

On a nippy Thursday, fifty miles away from the New Hampshire State House where the House was in session, people committed to peaceful pro-life action gathered on a small-town sidewalk. They were in front of a town hall which sits next door to an abortion facility. Turning away from news about life-issue legislation, they were there to hear a story of encouragement and hope.

Ramona Treviño shares her story

Texas resident Ramona Treviño is the outreach director for the international 40 Days for Life effort. In a whirlwind tour last week, she spoke at seven regional 40DFL campaign events, including three in New Hampshire. I caught up with her in Greenland.

The Greenland participants welcomed Treviño to her first visit to New Hampshire on a cold but sunny Wednesday morning. She responded in kind. “It’s beautiful. I couldn’t be more blessed.”

_{Ramona Treviño of 40 Days for Life, speaking in Greenland NH. Ellen Kolb photo.}

“I’m a living witness to what the power of prayer does. This for me is a special time of the year, not only ’cause it’s Lent, but also this time of year, twelve years ago, is when I left my position at Planned Parenthood, and had a beautiful conversion that can only be attributed to the Holy Spirit and the grace that was poured out because of your witness, the power of prayer, and fasting.”

Her journey from PP to 40DFL

Catholic by upbringing – “culturally Catholic,” she called it – she knew enough to consider abortion unthinkable when she became pregnant at 16. Her parents agreed, and she gave birth without support from the child’s father. Later, she met and married a man with whom she entered fully into her faith. Even so, “unfortunately, I accepted a position working for the nation’s largest abortion [provider]” a year and a half later. The provider was Planned Parenthood, and the facility was near her Texas home.

How did she end up there? She offered several reasons. First, “ignorance.” While she knew Planned Parenthood provided birth control, STD testing, and well-woman exams, she wasn’t aware that it was a powerhouse of the abortion industry. “I didn’t know that every year they’re responsible for 300,000 abortions in this country.”

She also believed something that I’ve heard time and again from former abortion workers. “I really thought I was helping women. I thought I was going to be preventing abortions. Also, I was of another mentality: I personally wouldn’t have an abortion, but every woman has the right to choose for herself…. And in my [facility] we didn’t perform abortions under our roof. The surgical center in Dallas-Fort Worth was where abortions took place. And that was another way that I justified and rationalized working for PP. I thought my hands [were] clean.”

“You guys showed up.”

What changed? “You guys showed up,” “you guys” being participants in 40 Days for Life. Trevio described listening to Catholic radio one day in her car in Advent of 2010 and hearing a promotional message about 40 Days for Life. The message included the news that the following spring’s campaign would be outside her facility. She was startled.

“I had never heard of 40 Days for Life up to then. [It was the] first time I had heard of this peaceful prayerful vigil that was going to be held for 40 days outside of my facility. It was going to kick off on Ash Wednesday.and of course, being Catholic, I thought ‘maybe God’s trying to tell me something.’ …Now we had always had protesters outside our facility. And you know, these protesters would kind of yell at the women to try to get their attention….They didn’t strike me as loving people.” In the 40 Days for Life message, “there was something about hearing these words: ‘a peaceful and prayerful vigil’ – that really put my soul at peace.”

The 40DFL campaign began. At one point she actually went to the prayer witnesses and asked them for prayers. She had become uncomfortable working for PP, and a priest had advised her to leave, but still she hesitated. The campaign leader later joined in prayer for her, and he asked if he could share her prayer request with others.

That impressed her greatly “He asked for my permission. I think that was huge. It meant he saw me as a person with dignity, and not as some prize to be won.”

Let that sink in for a moment. I sometimes need to be reminded that other peoples’ stories are not mine to share until they give their consent.

“What did you do?”

Many more details went into her decision to leave PP shortly after the end of that 40DFL campaign. The scales were tipped in favor of life as she listened to Catholic radio (there’s that influence of media again!) a couple of days after Easter. “An elderly gentleman had called in and he was sharing his own experiences with praying in front of his local abortion facility….[T]he radio host said to him Thank you, sir, for all that you do for the unborn. Thank
you for your witness. Because at the end of our lives, we’re all going to stand before God. And He’s going to ask you ‘did
you know about abortion? Did you know babies were being ripped from their mothers’ wombs limb by limb? More than
3000 per day?’ And then He’s going to ask you ‘what did you do?’ And that was my moment in which my conscience
was completely illuminated.” Three days later, her time at PP was over.

Now, twelve years later, Ramona Treviño works for 40 Days for Life. “The truth is, guys, you’re my heroes.” She pointed out that during this campaign in 604 cities worldwide – the largest 40DFL campaign to date – 248 abortion-minded women have chosen life. “Something’s happening. And our prayers are unitive. God is answering our prayers. You are answering that call: ‘what did you do.’ Thank you for your Yes.”

House votes to gut Fetal Life Protection Act

The New Hampshire House has passed HB 224 on a 205-178 roll call, sending to the Senate a bill stripping penalties from the Fetal Life Protection Act and thus rendering FLPA useless. Governor Sununu has indicated he will sign the bill if it reaches his desk.

The Senate hasn’t scheduled a hearing on HB 224 yet, but that doesn’t matter: contact your senator now. The Senate must stop HB 224 so it never reaches the Governor’s desk.

We have a governor who wants to be able to say he signed New Hampshire’s first abortion rollback in a quarter century – hey, look at me! I’m moderate, not an extremist! – while also rendering that rollback unenforceable. Unregulated induced abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy would once again be state policy, if the governor were to sign HB 224, or even if he were to let the bill become law without his signature. He would be able to tout “moderation” in appearance while being an abortion extremist in practice.

That asinine political gamesmanship will only be called off if the Senate kills HB 224.

The House roll call on the vote is at this link (go to left side of that web page and click under “House roll calls”). Motion was “ought to pass,” so a “yea” vote was a vote to remove penalties from FLPA. All the Democrats present voted Yea, while 16 Republicans joined them. And by the way, the chief sponsor of HB 224 was a Republican.

Repeat after me: pro-life is not spelled G-O-P. Every single senator, regardless of party, needs to hear from constituents on this. The governor is enormously influential with his fellow Republicans. Those Republicans need to be reminded whom they were elected to serve.

There will be a Senate hearing on HB 224 at some point. I’ll report once that’s on the schedule. That will be a good day to take off work, bring the kids, carpool with your friends, tell your pro-life friends in neighboring states what’s going on, and show up for however long it takes to look those five Senate committee members in the eye and tell them you are NOT okay with HB 224.

For its encore, House voted to declare abortion “vital to the equality and liberty of all individuals”

HB 88, the counterpart to SB 181 recently killed by the Senate, was passed by the House today, 199-185. That one was on a division vote, not a roll call, so no rep’s name is associated with a vote. HB 88, titled “relative to reproductive rights,” would prohibit abortion regulations other than the ones already on the books. Right now, FLPA is on the books, with a 24-week abortion limit. If the governor signs HB 224 removing penalties from FLPA, nothing will prevent the performance of abortion at any point in pregnancy. HB 88 calls abortion “vital to the equality and liberty of all individuals,” in case there’s any doubt about the extremism behind the bill.

Ah, but the Senate will kill it, you might be thinking. I do not share such optimism. The Senate killed SB 181, but HB 88 gives the abortion advocates another bite at the apple. If only three senators flip their votes, HB 88 will pass.

Outright repeal of FLPA, HB 271, failed today on a tie vote and was then tabled. (Yes, it was that close.) The threatened constitutional amendment, CACR 2, didn’t come close to the 60% support it needed. As I write this, it’s midday and the House still has its afternoon session ahead, with more votes to come. I’ll edit this post as needed.

Links to roll calls and vote information

The General Court website is the source for this information. I’ve listed the two bills featured in this post first, followed by the rest of the life-issue bills I’ve reported on so far this session. Each bill has its own information page on the General Court website; to find out who voted how, look at the left side of the bill’s page and click underneath “House Roll Calls.” Note that for division and voice votes, there are no names associated with the votes and therefore there’s no roll call.

HB 224, to repeal penalties on late-term-abortion providers under the Fetal Life Protection Act (FLPA), : the vote was 205-178 on an “Ought to Pass” motion. A Yea vote was a vote to expand abortion by making FLPA unenforceable.

HB 88, as described above, was killed via division vote rather than a roll call. Representatives thus avoided being held accountable for their votes on this bill.

CACR 2, a constitutional amendment to enshrine abortion in the state constitution: the vote was 193-191 on an “Ought to Pass” motion, which is short of the 60% required for a constitutional amendment to pass the House. A Yea vote was a vote to make abortion constitutionally protected.

HB 271, to repeal FLPA altogether: the bill was tabled on a voice vote after an “Ought to Pass” motion was defeated on a tie vote, 192-192. A Yea on the “Ought to Pass” motion was a vote to repeal New Hampshire’s 24-week abortion limitation and thus keep abortion unregulated throughout pregnancy.

HB 582, abortion statistics, was killed on a division vote: 205-177 on an “Inexpedient to Legislate” motion.

HB 591, a “heartbeat bill: prohibiting abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, was defeated on a 271-110 vote on an “Inexpedient to Legislate” motion.

HB 615, requiring independent audits of “reproductive health facilities” to ensure that no public funds are used for abortion, was tabled on a division vote, 354-29, effectively killing the bill.

The following bills were killed on voice votes (no roll call, no count) on “Inexpedient to Legislate” motions: HB 346, a born-alive infant protection bill, and HB 562, informed consent for abortion;