After N.H. House votes to codify abortion rights, remove penalties for doctors, bills head to Senate

Reproductive rights advocates won several victories Thursday in the State House, as the New Hampshire House of Representatives voted to protect abortion rights under state law and remove civil and criminal penalties for doctors from the state’s 24-week ban.

Lawmakers also overwhelmingly rejected bills that would have placed new restrictions on abortion.

State lawmakers have been considering various bills to either expand or restrict abortion access this session, their first since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.

Democrats have called for affirmatively codifying abortion rights under state law, now that federal protections have ended.

One bill the House passed Thursday — known as the Access to Abortion Care Act — would guarantee in state statute the right to terminate a pregnancy up to 24 weeks .

That measure is unlikely to become law. The Republican-controlled Senate voted down an identical bill last month.

A second bill House lawmakers passed Thursday is sponsored by Republican Rep. Dan Wolf of Newbury and several Democratic lawmakers. It would get rid of the criminal and civil penalties that medical providers could face under the 24-week ban.

Many doctors have spoken out against those penalties. They say the threat of prosecution could lead physicians to delay care until a patient’s health deteriorates and deter specialists in high-risk pregnancies from practicing in the state.

The bill now heads to the state Senate. Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, has said he would support removing the penalties .

“Today’s critical votes to protect and expand reproductive rights truly represent the will of the people of New Hampshire,” Kayla Montgomery, vice president for public affairs at Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, said in a statement.

She urged senators to follow suit “to ensure Granite Staters continue to have access to safe, legal abortion and our state’s trusted doctors are not criminalized for providing appropriate, compassionate care.”

Anti-abortion advocates warned against dropping the penalties from what’s officially known as the Fetal Life Protection Act. They say that would leave the law toothless.

“It’s clear we still have a lot of work to do to convince our legislators that life should continue to be protected, especially for preborn babies that can survive on their own,” Jason Hennessey, president of New Hampshire Right to Life, said in a statement Thursday.

An effort to repeal the 24-week ban outright was tabled after lawmakers deadlocked on it, 192-192.

The House rejected a bill that would have banned most abortions after about six weeks by a wide margin. In a voice vote, lawmakers also killed a bill that sponsors described as requiring “informed consent” before an abortion , but which providers and abortion-rights advocates called unnecessary and stigmatizing.

A proposed state constitutional amendment that would have guaranteed the right to make reproductive decisions in New Hampshire garnered a slight majority of votes, but failed to gain the three-fifths majority threshold required to go before voters.

This story is a production of the New England News Collaborative. It was originally published by New Hampshire Public Radio.