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Rep. Lucy Weber, a Walpole Democrat, persuaded the House to reject an abortion-rights bill she co-sponsored because the Senate dropped the protections and added a requirement that providers keep abortion statistics. (Screenshot)
The House has rejected an effort by the Senate to turn a bill intended to protect abortion rights into one that would instead collect abortion statistics. Opponents cited privacy concerns and displeasure with what they saw as the Senate’s hijacking of the bill without giving the public a chance to weigh in.
Rep. Lucy Weber, a Walpole Democrat and co-sponsor of the underlying legislation , Senate Bill 461, asked House members Thursday to vote down the version the Senate sent them back .
“So why am I standing here opposing a bill of which I was a sponsor?” Weber said. “Well, strange things happen in the place that we may not mention. And this bill, which was a very different bill at birth, is now completely opposite to its original intention.”
The House defeated the bill, 201-164.
New Hampshire is one of fewer than five states that does not collect statistics on abortion, and this is at least the eighth time since 2002 that lawmakers have rejected an effort to change that.
The Senate’s rewrite of SB 461 would have required abortion providers to tell the state where and when they’ve performed abortions; the age and state residence of the patient; and the method they used to end the pregnancy.
Providers would not have been required to report information that would identify patients but nor would they have been prohibited from doing so.
One of the state’s largest abortion providers, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, opposed the bill because of its lack of privacy protections and concerns about how the data would be used.
“We had significant concerns about this bill and particularly about the possibility of the weaponization of abortion data in a post- Roe world,” said Kayla Montgomery, vice president of public affairs for the organization and the Planned Parenthood NH Action Fund. “We’re glad to see that this bill will not be moving forward this session, and look forward to further educating lawmakers about increased protections for abortion providers and patients.”
The post Citing concerns and protocol, House rejects Senate’s abortion statistics bill appeared first on New Hampshire Bulletin .
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