CONCORD, April 2, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pro-life advocates in New Hampshire are celebrating a slew of recent legislative victories in the state’s House of Representatives, including an informed consent bill and a ban on late term abortions.
The “Women’s Right to Know Act,” perhaps the most hotly debated of the recent laws, was passed late last week after some of its more controversial provisions had been removed. In its current form, the bill requires that a woman seeking an abortion be provided with a description of the proposed abortion method and information about the medical risks of abortion including infection, hemorrhage, and cervical or uterine perforation. The clinic is also required to tell her about abortion alternatives.
The bill had originally included breast cancer among the medical risks attending an abortion, and included a lengthy defense of the link between abortion and breast cancer.
According to the Huffington Post, the proposed language noted that it was “scientifically undisputed that full-term pregnancy reduces a woman’s lifetime risk of breast cancer,” since the tissue that grows in the breast during pregnancy develops into “mature cancer resistant cells” after the 32nd week of gestation.
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The proposal went on to explain: “When an abortion ends a normal pregnancy, the woman is left with more immature breast tissue than she had before she was pregnant. In short, the amount of immature breast tissue is increased and this tissue is exposed to significantly greater amounts of estrogen – a known cause of breast cancer.”
The provision was eventually removed, over the protests of the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jeanine Notter of Merrimack. The House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee also removed a provision allowing doctors who violate the law to be charged with a felony.
A twenty-four hour waiting period requirement did survive the final mark-up, however, despite vigorous opposition from opponents.
“Twenty-four hours is not too long to wait when we are talking about the life of another human being,” said co-sponsor Rep. Tammy Simmons, according to the Concord Monitor.
The bill passed the House last Wednesday by a vote of 178-152. The legislative body also passed a ban on abortions after twenty weeks gestation the next day.
The late term abortion ban is based on what the proposal calls “substantial evidence” that unborn babies are capable of experiencing pain by twenty weeks. The bill notes, however, that “even before 20 weeks after fertilization, unborn children have been observed to exhibit hormonal stress responses to painful stimuli.”
Both pieces of legislation come on the heels of abortion restrictions enacted earlier this year. A bill passed out of the House at the end of January would prohibit the use of public funds to subsidize abortions either “directly or indirectly.” The bill is currently being considered in the Senate, where it is scheduled for a hearing later this week.
Additionally, the House passed a partial birth abortion ban on March 14th by a vote of 224-110. While partial birth abortion is illegal under federal law, the proposed legislation asserts that the federal ban requires supplementation on the state level since it is “narrowly tailored to reach only those partial-birth abortion procedures that implicate Congress’ power to regulate interstate or foreign commerce.
The bill also asserts that partial birth abortion is never medically necessary, and calls the procedure “gruesome and inhumane.”