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New Hampshire
House votes to reject assisted suicide, reinstate
parental notice By Dave Andrusko Two important victories in New Hampshire, one to restore what was lost, the other to fend off an anti-life assault.
Alex Schadenberg alerted the pro-life world that HB 513, which would have legalized assisted suicide, was resoundingly turned back by the New Hampshire House today by a vote of 234 to 99. Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, added, “We have had victories this Spring in Montana, Hawaii, Idaho and New Hampshire.” And on a vote of 256-102 the New Hampshire House also began the process of reinstating a parental notice law in the Granite State. The bill now moves on to the state Senate. State Rep. Kathleen Souza, the bill's prime sponsor, said the bill was modeled after laws in other states that the Supreme Court has found constitutional. "I beg you. Do not keep parents out of their children's lives any longer," Souza said. The legislative and legal history of New Hampshire’s unenforced parental notification law, passed in 2003, is mind-numbingly complicated. Under the law, the abortionist must notify one a parent or a guardian 48 hours before performing an abortion. As do all such laws, there is judicial bypass, which permits the girl to go to a judge for permission to abort without telling a parent. After a federal judge declared the parental notification law unconstitutional in late 2003, the state appealed, led by then-attorney general and now U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte. In Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England--what turned out to be the last abortion case heard by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor--the Supreme Court in a unanimous opinion concluded that the lower courts might have erred in striking down the entire law. The justices sent the case back to the lower courts to see if it could be salvaged. U.S. District Judge Joseph DiClerico put the case on hold while the Legislature, which by then was controlled by forces hostile to the law and abetted by a pro-abortion Gov. John Lynch, reconsidered. In 2007, Gov. Lynch signed a repeal of the parental notice law, the first state ever to do so. Souza told her colleagues, “We have before you a bill we are confident will stand the test.” She added, “It is time for parents of this state to assert their proper roles, to watch out for, to care for, to protect and to stand by their minor children.” I need your feedback on both Today's News & Views and National Right to Life News Today. Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha |
