Senate Republicans Create Committee to Find a Path Forward for Cruel, Anti-Family Legislation
Contact Name: Marina Altschiller
Phone: (603) 271-3375
CONCORD - Today, Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted Ought to Pass as amended on HB 233, a bill which will create a committee to study different ways to criminalize health care providers and limit the rights of grieving parents. This cruel, anti-family bill was brought forward on the inflammatory and baseless premise that infants are being left to die by medical professionals in New Hampshire, which is already illegal and classified as infanticide.
After the vote, Senator Becky Whitley (D-Hopkinton) and Senator Tom Sherman (D-Rye) issued the following statements:
“I am horrified that my Republican colleagues would see fit to continue any kind of conversation of this cruel, anti-family legislation,” stated Senator Becky Whitley (D-Hopkinton). “Politicians should not insert themselves into the most private and painful moments of a person’s life based on blatant falsehoods about reproductive health care. Rather than allowing a grieving mother to hold her baby for their first and last minutes together, the underlying bill would force health care providers to perform futile, invasive procedures on an infant - ripping away that brief moment of comfort. The decisions made in these unspeakably tragic circumstances should be left up to the family and their doctor, not a group of legislators who feel entitled to invade the privacy of a grieving family in order to promote their extremist and misleading agenda.”
Senator Tom Sherman (D-Rye) added, “First, do no harm. This principle guides medical professionals in every single decision we make. Any version of HB 233 erases the meaning of that pledge. There is no more tragic moment for a family than when the child they truly wanted to bring into the world is born pre-viability or with a fatal fetal diagnosis. In those circumstances, it is up to the family and their doctor to decide the right course of action that, hopefully, will limit the pain felt by the infant for however long they are able to survive outside of the womb. Not only does the underlying bill take that choice away, but it also criminalizes doctors for appropriately performing their duties and follows the Texas example by creating a vigilante system to instill fear in our health care providers. There is nothing to study here. This bill never should have been allowed to remain in committee and today’s vote to continue the conversation is just further proof that Republicans refuse to trust women to make their own health care decisions and refuse to trust doctors to treat their patients.”
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