Go to Content Go to Navigation Go to Navigation Go to Site Search Homepage

CONCORD, NH - On Wednesday, the New Hampshire House of Representatives voted “Inexpedient to Legislate” on HB 346, a so-called “born alive” bill, on the consent calendar. 

HB 346 was based on model legislation from out-of-state interests, pushed a false narrative about reproductive health care for political purposes. Harm to anyone, including a newborn, is already illegal. The misleading claim that infants are being left to die by doctors is completely false, offensive, and dangerous.

HB 346 is not an abortion bill. Instead, this bill threatened health care providers who need the ability to provide the most appropriate and compassionate end of life neonatal care for families in the most devastating moments of their lives: knowing their newborn will not survive, no matter what futile treatments a provider may perform. 

During the public hearing on HB 346, 970 Granite Staters signed in to oppose the extreme bill, with just 239 signed in to support. Many families came forward to share their personal stories in opposing HB 346, including Nancy.

After the vote, Liz Canada Advocacy Manager at Planned Parenthood of Northern New England and Planned Parenthood New Hampshire Action Fund, released the following statement:

“We are thrilled that this dangerous, callous bill will not go forward. Year after year, extreme politicians use inflammatory anti-abortion rhetoric to try to demonize health care providers who provide appropriate and compassionate end of life neonatal care for families in the most devastating moments of their lives: knowing their newborn will not survive no matter what treatments a provider may perform. And year after year, families who have experienced this unbearable pain are forced to relive their trauma to encourage elected officials to do the right thing. 

At Planned Parenthood, we trust patients and doctors to make the best decisions for them and their families. We applaud the House of Representatives for rejecting attacks on grieving families today, and hope we’ve seen the last of these cruel policy proposals in New Hampshire.”  

BACKGROUND:

HB 346’s Harmful Impact on Patients and Providers:

While the intent of this inflammatory bill was to drive a false narrative about abortion care, HB 346 could cause real harm to patients and providers.

This bill could force parents to have their infant undergo invasive and futile medical procedures which could deny families who are grieving the loss of their child the ability to choose the compassionate care that’s best for them, as well as religious rites and sacraments. Families deserve to be able to decide what is best for them in these tragic situations.

In 2022, the Legislature made the critical and necessary decision to give women and families more options when facing these devastating decisions by allowing for a fatal fetal diagnoses exception to New Hampshire’s current 24-week abortion ban. The passage of HB 346 could harm the very people who make the decision to continue with their pregnancy knowing they will not be leaving the hospital with their newborn.

HB 346 sought to criminalize the practice of safe and compassionate medicine by ignoring the medical decision process related to early labor and neonatal resuscitation and neonatal hospice - situations that are complex and heartbreaking. Doctors providing care under these complicated circumstances need to be able to provide each individual patient with the best medical care. Instead, this bill threatened doctors with criminal penalties.

HB 346 was Opposed by Medical Professionals:
When this same legislation was considered in 2021, Dr. Oge Young, a retired New Hampshire obstetrician-gynecologist, penned an op-ed, titled “Born Alive” bill does not protect anyone,” in which he explains the impact this bill could have: “If it becomes law, doctors would be forced to take these nonviable babies from their parents and make futile efforts to save a baby they cannot save. The statute would deny families in these tragic situations the small amount of time they have to hold their babies. Physicians might be charged with a serious crime, while providing love and empathy, and appropriate hospice care.”

Similar Bills Have Been Rejected Numerous Times:
Other so-called “born alive” measures have been considered and defeated in the New Hampshire legislature previously, including:

###

Planned Parenthood of Northern New England (PPNNE) is the largest provider of reproductive and sexual health care across the State of New Hampshire. We serve New Hampshire residents through 5 health centers in Derry, Exeter, Keene, Manchester and White River Junction, VT. Last year we saw more than 10,000 patients at these sites. PPNNE was named a 2021 and 2022 Guardian of Excellence Award® winner by Press Ganey, the national leader in health care consumer and workforce engagement. Press Ganey recognizes PPNNE as a top-performing health care organization, achieving the 95th percentile or above for performance in patient experience, out of more than 20,000 medical practices.

Planned Parenthood New Hampshire Action Fund (PPNHAF) is an independent, nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization formed as the advocacy and political arm of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England in New Hampshire. The Action Fund engages in educational and electoral activity, including voter education, grassroots organizing, and legislative advocacy.

We and our third partners use cookies and other tools to collect, store, monitor, and analyze information about your interaction with our site to improve performance, analyze your use of our sites and assist in our marketing efforts. You may opt out of the use of these cookies and other tools at any time by visiting Cookie Settings. By clicking “Allow All Cookies” you consent to our collection and use of such data, and our Terms of Use. For more information, see our Privacy Notice.

Cookie Settings

We, and our third-party partners, use cookies, pixels, and other tracking technologies to collect, store, monitor, and process certain information about you when you access and use our services, read our emails, or otherwise engage with us. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences, or your device. We use that information to make the site work, analyze performance and traffic on our website, to provide a more personalized web experience, and assist in our marketing efforts. We also share information with our social media, advertising, and analytics partners. You can change your default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our Necessary Cookies as they are deployed to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information, please see our Privacy Notice.

Marketing

On

We use online advertising to promote our mission and help constituents find our services. Marketing pixels help us measure the success of our campaigns.

User Feedback and Session Replay

On

We use qualitative data from LogRocket, UserZoom, Hotjar and AB Tasty to learn about your user experience and improve our products and services. LogRocket allows us to view session replays.