New Hampshire is an outlier in the region when it comes to collecting abortion statistics. A bill by Sen. Kevin Avard seeks to change that.

Senate Bill 36 would make New Hampshire the 47th state to require medical providers and facilities to report information about abortions they perform to the state Department of Health and Human Services. That would include when and where the procedure happened, what methods or prescriptions were used and information about the patient, including their age and state of residence, as well as the gestational age of the fetus.

Avard, a Nashua Republican, said the bill would keep patient identities anonymous by gathering information on the practices of abortion providers but not the identities of people who receive abortions.

“We will finally shed some light on this industry and set the record straight on what methods are being used to perform abortions, how often they are performed and at what gestational ages,” Avard said during his bill’s hearing on Wednesday. “At the same time, we will remain firmly committed to the privacy and keeping all patient information strictly anonymous.”

Avard said because New Hampshire doesn’t collect abortion statistics, it’s a “dark area.” He also claimed that abortion providers have “repeatedly and publicly misrepresented the practice of abortion in this state.”

For example, he said, in 2021 providers argued against a bill that would’ve required ultrasounds be performed before abortions because that was already a routine practice. Not long after, he said, some changed their tune and said pre-abortion ultrasounds are rarely conducted in New Hampshire.

“SB 36 means that abortion providers will no longer be allowed to create whatever picture they want to suit their own purposes at that moment,” Avard said.

Democratic Sen. Sue Prentiss asked why the state would track which prescriptions are used for abortion, to which Avard responded that he “couldn’t answer that just yet.”

Prentiss also said while she knows this isn’t the bill’s final version, she wants to ensure that privacy is protected when reporting the location of an abortion, especially in small towns where she said it can be easier to identify someone.

Merrimack Republican Jeanine Notter, who’s a cosponsor of the bill, said that reporting a procedure’s location shouldn’t be a concern.

“Everybody knows everybody’s business. It doesn’t matter what’s reported,” Notter said. “However … if it’s aggregated by county, people are protected, so it’s not going to be a worry.”

The three states that do not require the collection of abortion data are California, Maryland and New Jersey.

 

Charlotte Matherly can be reached at cmatherly@cmonitor.com.