WASHINGTON — Yesterday, the New Hampshire Legislature stood up for the rights of parents and their minor daughters by overriding pro-abortion Governor John Lynch’s veto of the New Hampshire Parental Notification Bill. The legislation, which requires that abortionists give written notice to at least one parent or guardian of a minor girl 48 hours prior to performing an abortion, had passed earlier this year by large majorities. The bill passed the New Hampshire House of Representatives in March, 256-102; and in the state Senate May 25, 17-7.
“The New Hampshire Legislature has righted a terrible wrong by overriding Governor Lynch’s veto of the parental notice bill, and they are to be commended for protecting minor girls and the rights of their parents,” said Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D., National Right to Life director of state legislation. “It should be abundantly clear to Governor Lynch that his veto was out-of-touch with the people and flew in the face of common sense which dictates that an adult male predator shouldn’t have more rights than parents. With this override the legislature said to Lynch ‘Enough is enough. It’s time to protect New Hampshire’s daughters.'”
The bill contains both a judicial bypass measure and a medical emergency exception which allows for ” a condition that, on the basis of the physician’s good-faith clinical judgment, so complicates the medical condition of a pregnant woman as to necessitate the immediate abortion of her pregnancy to avert her death or for which a delay will create serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”
Twenty-nine states currently have parental involvement laws in effect. The full text of the New Hampshire bill is here: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2011/HB0329.html
Founded in 1968, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of 50 state right-to-life affiliates and more than 3,000 local chapters, is the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots pro-life organization. Recognized as the flagship of the pro-life movement, NRLC works through legislation and education to protect innocent human life from abortion, infanticide, assisted suicide and euthanasia.