Abortion

New Hampshire House Passes 20 Week Ban, 24 Hour Wait and “Informed Consent” Bills

The New Hampshire House has been very busy restricting abortion this week.

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The New Hampshire state House has turned into an “all abortion, all the time” legislative session, as it voted this week to pass bills on “informed consent,” a 24 hour wait period prior to an abortion, and a 20 week ban based on the unproven claim of fetal pain.

New Hampshire’s wait period bill was originally going to involve telling women that abortion causes breast cancer, as well as force women to watch a video of fetal development prior to the termination, but in a series of votes those pieces were eventually stripped from the final version.

Interestingly, the justification for both the fictitious abortion/breast cancer link as well as using a video was provided by bill sponsor Republican Rep. Jeanine Notter, who argued that her legislation must be sound, since it was provided by anti-choice activist groups who had passed it in other states, and who offered to provide her with materials such as the video women would be forced to view.

Republican Rep. Jeanine Notter of Merrimack, the bill’s main sponsor, urged the House to keep her legislation intact, telling them 31 other states had adopted the same bill.

“This is model legislation from Americans [United] for Life,” she said. “Does abortion increase the risk of breast cancer? It depends on the study (you believe.) Women should know about the risk.”

She also defended the section of the bill that required the state to create a video and other materials showing a fetus’s development from two weeks to delivery. State officials estimated it would cost the state $100,000 a year to create those materials and oversee the law. Notter said she had found a way to save money on materials because officials in Alabama and Idaho had told her New Hampshire could use theirs.

The House also passed a bill that will ban all abortions after 20 weeks, except in cases of saving the life of the mother or to “avert the serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.”  As a NARAL New Hampshire affiliate notes, there are already no elective abortions performed in the state after 20 weeks.