Abortion providers and some privacy advocates oppose the Republican proposal to collect abortion statistics, arguing that the bill, as written, could put patients' identities at risk. .
New Hampshire is one of four states that does not collect and report abortion statistics. In fact, local health care providers already voluntarily share some of their aggregated abortion data, including the total number of procedures, with national abortion research groups.
Republican lawmakers have repeatedly tried to require abortion providers to share certain data. For supporters, bringing New Hampshire in line with the majority of other states would ensure policymakers have the tools they need to craft legislation.
“More data is better than less,” Jason Hennessey of the New Hampshire Right to Life group, which opposes abortion rights, said at Wednesday's hearing.
The latest effort, Senate Bill 461, passed the state Senate on a party-line vote last month. This would require health care providers to share the date and location of each abortion with the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services. Providers would also be required to identify the method used, including whether the drug was prescribed, as well as the patient's place of residence and the gestational age of the fetus.
At a House Health and Human Services Committee hearing, Hennessy asked lawmakers to expand the data collected to include post-abortion complications and include the possibility of fines for providers who don't comply with the requirements. He called for the bill to be amended. But Sen. Cindy Rosenwald, D-Nashua, told House members that the proposal, as written in the proposal, was too broad and that abortion providers would have to disclose the names of patients undergoing abortions. He said that they have not been able to clearly prevent this from happening.
“This bill allows us to specifically tell the state who is receiving abortions in New Hampshire,” she said.
Rosenwald said he does not object to states collecting abortion-related data as long as it protects the privacy of both patients and health care workers. The bill also drew concerns from Ware's Neil Kirk, a former Republican lawmaker known for championing privacy rights while in office. He noted that disclosing the exact location where an abortion was performed or prescribed, such as a local doctor's office, risks identifying the patient.
“In small towns, it may be very obvious to people who the woman is,” Kruk says.
The current bill would require the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services to publish annual data on abortions, but the bill does not specify whether the information would be published collectively or separately by facility. is not specified.
Patricia Tilley, who oversees the state's public health department, told lawmakers that implementing the data collection system would require the state to purchase secure software and hire additional staff to manage the process. Ta. Tilley could not specify the cost, but she said it could be “approximately” $1 million.
Abortion providers already say they voluntarily share aggregated data with research groups such as the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights and conducts research on sexual health. An estimated 2,400 abortions were performed in New Hampshire in 2023, Guttmacher said.
“We certainly understand the concept of this bill,” Kayla Montgomery, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, told lawmakers Wednesday. “But now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned and the reproductive health care landscape in this country is in complete turmoil, the New Hampshire Legislature must take every precaution to protect abortion providers and patients. be.”
Montgomery said Planned Parenthood of Northern New England already shares data with the state of Maine, which uses a secure portal for providers to upload certain abortion metrics. However, other abortion providers opposed the bill because they believed it had no significant public health benefits.
Dr. Ilana Kass, a gynecologic oncologist at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, said releasing detailed information about abortion providers in the state puts medical staff at risk of violence and harassment. He warned lawmakers that this would happen.
“I think this puts patients at risk and ultimately puts the people of the Granite State at risk,” Kass said. “This is a slippery slope.”
These articles are shared by our partners at The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, please visit collaborativenh.org.