Last week, the Senate HHS Committee heard powerful testimony on the right to try expansion that would give terminally ill patients greater access to treatments in development. The bill is now in the Senate.
By providing greater legal protections for patients and providers and incorporating common-sense enhancements, HB 701 promises real relief for terminally ill individuals desperately seeking access to promising treatment options. It will not only advance life-affirming healthcare in New Hampshire, it will make our state the best jurisdiction in the country for clinical trials and seriously ill patients who are urgently seeking additional treatment options.
Unfortunately, because of the very protections that will make these treatments more accessible, the organization representing plaintiff attorneys is diligently lobbying the Senate and encouraging them to oppose this vital legislation to keep their path to litigation open. Imagine the heartbreak for the terminally ill individuals and their families who are denied a potential lifeline because of a medical provider’s fear of being taken to court.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
✅ HB 701 will soon have an executive session in the Senate HHS Committee. During an executive session, the committee will vote to recommend the bill as OTP (ought to pass) or ITL (inexpedient to legislate).
📩 We urge you to contact the Senate HHS committee and ask them to vote OTP (ought to pass) on HB 701. Specifically, ask them to protect and maintain the civil liability waiver. Without this vital element of the bill, seriously ill patients will not have meaningful access to treatments that could extend their lives.
📧 Below are the emails for the members of the Senate HHS Committee:
David.Rochefort@gc.nh.gov
Kevin.Avard@gc.nh.gov
Regina.Birdsell@gc.nh.gov
Suzanne.Prentiss@gc.nh.gov
Pat.Long@gc.nh.gov
Contact The Committee
Ask House to Oppose Deceptive Pro-Abortion Bill
Last week, the House HHS Committee heard testimony on SB 36, purportedly an “abortion statistics” bill. In reality, this bill has been drafted by lobbyists for the abortion industry. In its current form, SB 36 will let the abortion industry publish completely fabricated statistics in official DHHS reports.
New Hampshire is one of only four states in America that does not collect abortion statistics—and Cornerstone has been calling for an abortion statistics law since 2004.
The abortion industry is now attempting to exploit pro-lifers’ desire for statistics with this deceptive bill, written directly by paid lobbyists for Planned Parenthood and unanimously supported by Senate Democrats.
Under SB 36, abortionists will never face any consequences for willfully submitting manufactured statistics, which DHHS will then publish as true.
In theory, the bill’s penalty is a $100 fine to be imposed by DHHS. Yet our Patients’ Bill of Rights contained a similar, $2,000 DHHS fine. Dartmouth openly and flagrantly violated the law for six months—and DHHS never imposed any penalty.
Many examples show that, on polarizing cultural issues, New Hampshire’s left-wing state agencies will simply never act to impose an administrative penalty under any circumstances.
For this reason, an abortion statistics law requires—at minimum—a judicial remedy such as a misdemeanor penalty for willful violations. Without a working enforcement mechanism, this bill will produce pro-abortion propaganda—not factual statistics.
Because it was written by Planned Parenthood lobbyists, the bill is also full of other deceptive clauses designed to serve the interests of the abortion industry. For example, the bill does not require that abortionists report the actual gestational age of the child. Even Massachusetts still requires abortionists to report the child’s gestational age.
The function of this bill is to give the abortion lobby special government privileges, favoritism enjoyed by no other sector of the medical field, and to give them the ability to use DHHS as their propaganda tool to lie to the public. Any deceptive “statistics” provided under these conditions will do more harm than good by providing a false foundation for policy and public opinion. The cost of these manipulated statistics will be real lives. For this reason, Cornerstone strongly opposes SB 36.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
📝 SB 36 has been scheduled for an executive session Wednesday, April 30, at 10:00am in the House HHS Committee, Legislative Office Building, rooms 205-207. During an executive session, the committee will vote to recommend the bill as OTP (ought to pass) or ITL (inexpedient to legislate).
📩 We urge you to contact the House HHS committee and ask them to vote ITL (inexpedient to legislate) on SB 36. Below are the emails for the members of the House HHS Committee:
elephantsmarching@msn.com
Lisa.Mazur@gc.nh.gov
Mark.Mclean@gc.nh.gov
Susan.DeLemus@gc.nh.gov
Jim.Kofalt@gc.nh.gov
Yury.Polozov@gc.nh.gov
Jay.Markell@gc.nh.gov
Linda.McGrath@gc.nh.gov
Steven.Kesselring@gc.nh.gov
Lucy.Weber@gc.nh.gov
James.Mackay@mygait.com
Gary.Woods@gc.nh.gov
William.Palmer@gc.nh.gov
Trinidad.Tellez@gc.nh.gov
Jessica.Lamontagne@gc.nh.gov
Tim.Hartnett@gc.nh.gov
Janet.Lucas@gc.nh.gov
