For further information:
Jessica Rodgers, 202-626-8825, mediarelations@nrlc.org
 

NEW HAMPSHIRE GOVERNOR TO PARENTS:
You have no rights if your daughter is pregnant

WASHINGTON – The New Hampshire Parental Notification Bill, which was passed earlier this year by large majorities in the state's legislature was vetoed yesterday by pro-abortion Governor John Lynch. The legislation, which would have required that abortionists give written notice to at least one parent or guardian of a minor girl 48 hours prior to performing an abortion. The bill passed the New Hampshire state House of Representatives in March, 256-102; and in the state Senate May 25, 17-7.

"Governor Lynch's veto says to New Hampshire's parents: if your minor daughter is pregnant, you have no rights," said Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D., National Right to Life director of state legislation. "When a minor girl is the victim of abuse by an adult male predator and becomes pregnant, that is the time she needs her parents the most.  What Governor Lynch wants is to have a secret abortion performed on the minor girl

and send her back to the abusive situation.  This is a totally irresponsible decision which can only give comfort to pedophiles." 

In vetoing the bill, Gov. Lynch used a litany of excuses regarding lack of exceptions for certain cases – all of which if allowed for in the bill would cover up crimes perpetrated against minor girls and do nothing but protect their abusers. The bill contained both a judicial bypass measure and a medical emergency exception which allowed 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

"This veto is an affront to parents across the state and it puts minor girls in very real danger," Balch added. "We join with our New Hampshire affiliate, Citizens for Life, in calling on the state's legislators to override this outrageous veto."

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.