The baby steps were too much to contemplate, apparently. The New Hampshire House has killed abortion statistics once again. Ten Republicans joined 208 Democrats in voting “inexpedient to legislate” on HB 158.
The vote on the ITL motion was 218-144.
The Republicans who joined most Democrats in voting to kill the statistics bill were Edward “Ned” Gordon of Bristol, Erin Hennessey of Littleton, David Danielson and John Graham of Bedford, Russell Ober and Andrew Prout of Hudson, Mark Proulx of Manchester, Dan Wolf of Newbury, Betsy McKinney of Londonderry, and Josh Yokela of Fremont.
One Democrat voted with most Republicans against killing the bill: Jim Maggiore of North Hampton.
I’ve posted a county-by-county breakdown of the vote at Leaven for the Loaf.
With this vote, New Hampshire public health officials will continue to rely on self-reporting by a few abortion providers.
Speaking of providers, there is no restriction in New Hampshire on who may perform abortions. Public health officials will continue to be ignorant about who’s providing them and therefore will have no way of knowing if a provider has a history of harming women.
Information on pregnancy rates – legitimate public-health data, in the view of the Centers for Disease Control – will be skewed, with no reliable induced-abortion information to factor into the rate.
How many abortions take place every year in New Hampshire? Is there a difference between surgical and chemical abortions in terms of outcomes to maternal health? At what point in pregnancy are abortions performed, and what are the medical indications, if any? All remain unknown to public health officials and to women seeking abortion in New Hampshire.
Patient privacy was paramount in the drafting of HB 158. Nothing in the bill would have led to public disclosure of the names of women seeking abortions. Claims to the contrary were unfounded.
HB 158 would not have affected abortion rights or availability. It would not have conferred any rights on any human fetus. It would have been absolutely consistent with Roe v. Wade.
But abortion providers and their allies opposed it nonetheless.
