New Hampshire Passes Bill to Ban Late-Term Abortions, Protect Viable Unborn Babies

State   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Jun 24, 2021   |   11:57PM   |   Concord, New Hampshire

The number of states that allow late-term abortions on viable unborn babies soon may drop after the New Hampshire legislature voted Thursday to ban late-term abortions.

The AP reports state lawmakers approved the state budget with a pro-life amendment Thursday afternoon, with a 208-172 vote in the state House and 14-10 vote in the state Senate.

“We are only one of seven states in this country that does not put any kind of a limit on abortions,” said Sen. Sharon Carson, R-Londonderry. “Forty-three states in this country have agreed that at some point you have to consider the life of the infant.”

When Gov. Chris Sununu signs the bill, as he is expected to do, the number will change to 44.

The pro-life budget amendment prohibits abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy except when the mother’s life is at risk. Abortionists who violate the ban could face felony charges that include up to seven years in prison.

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Though Sununu is a pro-abortion Republican, he recently said he will not veto the budget because of the pro-life amendment.

“I’m a pro-choice governor, but like most citizens of the state of New Hampshire, I do not think that we should be doing a late-term … at the very-last-minute-type abortions,” Sununu said in an interview with a Concord radio station. “So, no, I wouldn’t necessarily veto a budget over that.”

Then, after the legislation passed Thursday, the governor praised it as “a win for every citizen and family in this state,” the Concord Monitor reports.

Still, abortion activists protested outside the governor’s office Thursday, demanding that he veto the bill, according to the local news. Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups also are pressuring him to change his mind.

A number of Democrat lawmakers joined abortion activists in slamming the bill, claiming it interferes in a woman’s private decisions.

“I am not a doctor, but I have never understood how a 424-person Legislature could fit in a doctor’s office and insert themselves between doctor and patient, ordering medical procedures such as ultrasound without regard to medical necessity, patient safety or cost,” said Rep. Marjorie Smith, D-Durham.

But Republican lawmakers celebrated the passage of the budget as a victory for all New Hampshire.

“In the end, budgets are so much more than just numbers, they’re about taking care of people’s needs in an honest, responsible way,” Senate President Chuck Morse said in a statement. “We built this budget on Republican principles and reliable revenues, and in the process, we also made certain we took care of the people of New Hampshire by making sure their concerns are our highest priority.”

Approximately 9,000 viable, late-term unborn babies are aborted every year in the United States, based on research by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute.

Seven states allow unborn babies to be aborted without restriction through all nine months of pregnancy and have done so for years. The states are Alaska, Colorado, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Vermont, along with Washington, D.C.

According to a 2020 investigation by Operation Rescue, 143 abortion facilities in the U.S. will abort unborn babies at 20 weeks of pregnancy or later.

What’s more, abortion lobbyists admit that most late-term abortions are done on healthy mothers carrying healthy babies. Guttmacher Institute statistics confirm that “most women seeking later terminations are not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment.” Instead, data suggest that “most women seeking later abortion fit at least one of five profiles: They were raising children alone, were depressed or using illicit substances, were in conflict with a male partner or experiencing domestic violence, had trouble deciding and then had access problems, or were young and nulliparous.”

Late-term abortionist Martin Haskell, who is credited with popularizing the partial-birth abortion procedure, said in a 1993 interview with American Medical News: “I’ll be quite frank: most of my abortions are elective in that 20-24 week range…. In my particular case, probably 20% are for genetic reasons. And the other 80% are purely elective.”

New York Magazine recently featured the story of an Oregon woman who aborted her unborn baby at 28 weeks of pregnancy for purely elective reasons; both she and her unborn baby were healthy.