I once (maybe twice) said that if New Hampshire legislators ever passed an abortion statistics law, I’d never show up at the State House again, out of sheer gratitude at the victory. Someone seems determined to see if I was serious.
How did we get a statistics bill so late in the legislative session?
I had thought any future deep dives into legislation would come via this blog’s newsletter, but this one calls for lengthy comment. Keep in mind that I am not an attorney (and neither are most of our legislators): a bill introduced by abortion advocates has been amended into a stats bill, only with the abortion advocates’ language still in there. I confess I never saw that coming.
SB 461 as introduced was meant to weaken the Fetal Life Protection Act (NH RSA 329:44, with RSA standing for “revised statutes annotated”). RSA 329:49, just a few lines down from FLPA, says that nothing in the law shall be construed to create a right to abortion. I take that to mean that FLPA leaves pre-24-week abortions legal, but doesn’t create any “right” that can be expanded by a court, as long as RSA 329:49 stays in effect. SB 461 started out as a simple repeal of RSA 329:49. It was sponsored by a who’s who of New Hampshire abortion absolutists, led by all ten Democratic state senators.
So where’s the problem?
A funny thing happened when SB 461 got to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Along party lines, the committee replaced the original language of SB 461 with language establishing a program to collect abortion statistics. The original sponsors expressed vehement disapproval, to no avail. The Senate passed SB 461 as amended on a 14-9 party-line vote, with Democratic Sen. D’Allesandro absent.
So there’s an abortion statistics bill on its way to the New Hampshire House, with a hearing coming up in the Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs (HHS) committee sometime soon.
There’s just one problem with that. The amended version of SB 461 still repeals the statute saying that nothing in the law creates a right to abortion. Abortion absolutists might be apoplectic about seeing a statistics bill in the works, but the original goal of SB 461 is well on its way to being realized.
I don’t ascribe bad faith to the senators (all Republicans) who supported SB 461 as amended. There are strong advocates for women’s health in that group, and health is what abortion statistics laws are about. I just can’t figure out why we need to undermine FLPA in order to get an abortion statistics law.
That’s why when I sign up online to register my opinion on the bill when it goes to House HHS, I’ll probably sign in as “neutral.” I’ll add a written statement as simple as I can make it: I am pro-stats, while being against repeal of the statutory provision that nothing in RSA 329 creates a right to abortion. That ought to be what House HHS hears over and over again: yes to stats; no to repealing RSA 329:49.
Such nuances are lost on abortion absolutists who oppose the bill as passed by the Senate. They’ll probably be lost on the journalists who will report the support/oppose numbers from the online sign-ins. They might also be lost on some pro-life allies. So be it. I’m uneasy about leaving pro-abortion language nestled inside what is meant to be a pro-life bill.
What does it mean to collect abortion statistics?
As has been the case since long before this blog came into being, New Hampshire does not report any statistics to the Centers for Disease Control about induced abortions – how many occur, how many are late-term, how many are for eugenic reasons or for maternal health, how many women experience complications, how many minors are brought across state lines for abortion, and so on. This sets New Hampshire apart from the 47 other states who provide aggregate data to the CDC, which every few years publishes an Abortion Surveillance report in the interest of public health.
“Aggregate” means that the data is NOT personally identifiable. No woman’s name is handed to the state or to the CDC. SB 461 as amended starts out with that assurance. Any claim you hear that SB 461 would name-and-shame women is nonsense.
I recall a 2020 state senate campaign where an incumbent senator was accused of being opposed to doctor-patient confidentiality – because he supported a statistics bill. Again: nonsense.
What is and isn’t in SB 461 as amended
SB 461, ignoring the troublesome provision I cite above, is actually a pretty stripped-down stats bill, which makes the reaction of abortion advocates that much harder to take seriously.
It doesn’t call for any reporting to the CDC. It requires abortion providers to give their abortion data to the medical facility in which the abortion is performed, which in turn will report the information to the state Department Health and Human Services, which will then provide a report of statistical data to legislators annually.
It calls on abortion providers to note the date and place the abortion was performed, the age and state of residence of the pregnant patient, gestational age of the fetus, method used to perform the abortion, and any prescription written for the purpose of inducing abortion. That’s it. At least SB 461 as amended would be an attempt to learn how many abortions take place under the direction of “health care providers,” independent of the anecdotal information handed out by lobbyists.
No mention of penalties for failure to report. No mention of maternal race or ethnicity which might help policymakers pinpoint communities where there are disproportionately poor post-abortion outcomes. No mention of collecting information on morbidity and mortality correlating to abortion.
And still, abortion advocates are crying foul. It’s enough to make one wonder if women’s health is really what they’re concerned about.
I wish SB 461 as amended were something I could support with a full-throated cheer, even with its bare-bones requirements. But with the repeal of language that says nothing in the law shall be construed to create a right to abortion, I just can’t. Yes to stats, no to repeal of RSA 329:49.
Side note: opponents of abortion stats were fans of Covid stats
I reported in 2021 that House Democrats called for collection of statistics on Covid infections. They were seeking information on the extent of infections, not personally-identifiable data that would violate patient privacy.
As I wrote back then, “That’s something to keep in mind the next time an abortion statistics bill is introduced. The same ‘Democratic leaders’ (and any likeminded Republicans) calling for COVID-19-positive stats ‘which wouldn’t invade personal privacy’ could explain their aversion to abortion stats subject to the same privacy protections….Maybe COVID will prompt some reconsideration about what it takes to collect and report aggregate public health data that protects individual privacy.” Maybe such reconsideration never happened, but it should.
header image by Pexels.com