Try as it might, the federal government has not yet convinced the U.S. Supreme Court that the health of American women depends on forcing a bunch of nuns to help procure contraception for their employees via employer-provided health insurance. The Court on May 16 saved the Little Sisters of the Poor and several other plaintiffs from the threat of ruinous fines for resisting the Obamacare contraceptive mandate. Score one for religious liberty. Now, the Little Sisters can get back to their mission of caring for the elderly poor in more than 30 countries – a mission that would be set back to the tune of $70 million a year in fines if the Obama Administration has its way.
Ellen Kolb
Tied and tabled: abortion stats and buffer zone repeal fail in the Senate
The New Hampshire Senate on May 5 tabled bills on the First Amendment and public health, after twelve Senators found them too hot to handle. Both bills were characterized by opponents as attacks on abortion rights, although neither would have affected to any degree the rights created by the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade.
Ought-to-pass motions failed 12-12 before the bills were tabled on voice votes. All the Democrats joined Republicans Little and Stiles in blocking passage.
Hey! They found the stats bill!
The revised New Hampshire Senate calendar for the May 5 session shows that HB 629, the abortion statistics bill, will be up for a vote that day. I was beginning to wonder when it would turn up.
First Amendment up for a NH Senate vote
A bill to repeal New Hampshire’s ill-advised and as-yet-unenforced buffer zone law is scheduled for a Senate vote Thursday, May 5, two days after a committee voted 3-2 to give the bill an “ought to pass” recommendation. HB 1570 passed the House earlier this session.
The Senate tabled a repeal bill last year after an ought-to-pass motion failed on a tie vote.
HB 1570 attempts to repeal a law passed in 2014 to discourage peaceful pro-life witnesses from exercising First Amendment rights on public sidewalks outside abortion facilities. While the law delegates to abortion facility operators the right to restrict access to public property, no facility has yet done so. The law is on the books, “protecting” no one. Repeal should be a no-brainer.
The New Hampshire law is not designed to enhance the safety of women entering places where abortions are performed. That’s what laws against criminal threatening and harassment and simple assault are for. The buffer zone law wasn’t written to discourage blockades or traffic obstruction or trespassing; those offenses are covered by other laws as well. Those laws apply to people outside as well as inside abortion facilities – unlike the buffer zone law.
Abortion stats: who’s holding up the bill?
Sorry-not-sorry to bring this up again, but will someone please point me to the place in the Senate where the abortion statistics bill was stashed? Who could possibly be benefiting from stalling on this?
I sat in on the House study committee meetings that resulted in this year’s HB 629, “relative to induced termination of pregnancy statistics.” So did a Planned Parenthood representative, someone from the state Vital Records office, and a DHHS staffer. The study was hardly one-sided. HB 629 passed the House in January. It had a Senate hearing in March. Since then, nothing. Look at the docket for the bill and listen for the crickets. No committee vote yet, never mind a scheduled floor vote.
We’re talking about counting abortions, not regulating them. This public health measure was a bipartisan effort up until the time the House handed off the bill to the Senate. The bill passed the House on a voice vote.
The House blurb on the bill was succinct.