Rep. Katy Peternel, who twice campaigned as pro-life, announces she is withdrawing her own 15-week abortion restriction.
On Monday, a moderate 15-week restriction on abortion was most likely destroyed before the House Judiciary Committee in Concord.
We are grateful to the small handful of brave pro-lifers—including one doctor, a few pastors, and some young mothers and Gen Z activists—who came to stand valiantly alongside us against a large number of abortion advocates, wealthy lobbying organizations, and House Republican leadership.
Polling shows that Granite Staters largely approve of moderate restrictions on abortion. In fact, no poll has ever shown that a majority of Granite Staters would oppose a 15-week restriction with the state’s exceptions intact. A 15-week bill is so moderate that, if the bill made it to Governor Ayotte’s desk, she would be the first Republican governor in America to veto such a moderate restriction.
But New Hampshire’s House Republican leaders are now firmly committed to making unlimited, elective abortion through six months the Republican Party position.
Last year, Cornerstone watched as NH Republican leaders pledged to support elective abortion until viability—a position no Republican in America had a few years ago. In response, we chose to advance a moderate, 15-week bill in the House. By fighting for a policy that polls well with the NH public, we hoped to rally rapidly-weakening GOP legislators, invigorate the collapsing pro-life caucus, and maintain space in the Republican Party for the pro-life debate to continue.
Yet many Republicans—including formerly pro-life reps—instead followed House leadership, sacrificing the hundreds of preborn, fully-formed children aborted each year between 15 and 24 weeks.
What exactly happened on Monday? Let’s give a full explanation and then discuss what we can do next.
Rep. Peternel and House GOP Leadership
Every representative within ten feet of this 15-week bill knows that House Republican leaders—especially House Majority Leader Jason Osborne and House Speaker Sherman Packard—worked tirelessly, using every means at their disposal, to kill this bill in the House Judiciary Committee and prevent it from getting to the floor and having a fair vote.
Osborne and Packard created new House rules, tried to have the bill overwritten with an unrelated amendment, asked the Committee to place the bill on the “consent calendar,” said they would pull Republicans from the Judiciary Committee if they supported the bill, used conflicting arguments against the bill, and cajoled representatives with offers and threats.
Ultimately, prime sponsor Rep. Katy Peternel, who twice ran as strongly pro-life, withdrew her own bill immediately before the House hearing.
By agreeing to prime sponsor this bill and then withdrawing it, Rep. Peternel effectively deprived her own pro-life constituents—as well as pro-lifers around the state—of a voice in the democratic process. By establishing the precedent that no abortion restriction will be allowed to reach the floor, she has successfully done more damage to the pro-life cause than any pro-abortion Republican before her.
Based on reliable, firsthand testimony, we expect Rep. Peternel to shortly accept a position in House Republican leadership, advancing her career at the expense of the least of these she was sent to Concord to protect.
All eight of the bill’s Republican cosponsors also agreed to withdraw their support of the bill. Some of these cosponsors had assured us—as late as 24-48 hours before the bill was withdrawn—that they were ready to defy House Republican leadership and would proudly stand by the bill and fight for the preborn. None of the cosponsors called us to raise concerns about the bill’s text or forewarn us that they would be withdrawing their support.
New Hampshire Right to Life’s Arguments
New Hampshire Right to Life, a volunteer pro-life organization, formerly stood by us to defend moderate protections for the preborn. Over the past week, NHRTL changed its position on this 15-week bill a number of times.
In mid-December, NHRTL worked alongside Cornerstone to host an event for legislators in support of the 15-week bill. NHRTL only began opposing the bill over the past 7-8 days.
Last week, NHRTL announced, for the first time, that they would not support the bill—but added that they would not try to stop the bill either.
On Saturday, NHRTL reversed course again, now pledging to support and lobby for the bill. A prominent NHRTL leader continued to reiterate this commitment on Sunday afternoon.
On Sunday evening—the eve of the House Judiciary hearing on the bill—NHRTL did a third, final about-face and began to strongly lobby against the bill, sending out an email vaguely attacking the bill’s language.
On Monday morning, NHRTL sent a second email falsely suggesting that the hearing had been canceled and urging pro-lifers not to come. In doing so, they confused and turned away many pro-lifers, successfully ensuring that any pro-lifers remaining would be greatly outnumbered by abortion advocates.
What is NHRTL’s last-minute criticism? In short, they objected that the bill begins with the clause: “All abortions are legal in New Hampshire before 15 weeks gestational age.” They claim that this clause—which helped win the support of weakening Republicans for saving hundreds of preborn children—morally legitimizes abortions before 15 weeks.
NHRTL did not have this standard before last week.
For example, NHRTL strongly lobbied for New Hampshire’s fetal homicide law, which allows someone who attacks a pregnant woman, causing her child’s death, to be convicted of murder. That law, which was passed before our 24-week restriction was enacted, explicitly says that all abortion remains legal. NHRTL did not merely accept this clause as a compromise: they lobbied to include language protecting “any medical procedure, including abortion” from prosecution in order to help the bill pass.
NHRTL changed its standards in the last moments of a final, existential battle for the pro-life movement in New Hampshire—actively campaigning against the 15-week bill, siding against vastly-outnumbered pro-lifers, and effectively helping NH House Republican leadership to end the possibility of bringing abortion restrictions to the House floor.
As an aside, NHRTL has also suggested that the language “All abortions are legal in New Hampshire before 15 weeks” could somehow allow doctors to kill preborn children through medical negligence. This is false—and no lawyers have endorsed this conclusion. New Hampshire’s abortion laws all describe abortion as a medical act done “with the intent to terminate a clinically diagnosable pregnancy.”
Unspecified objections to drafting are always the last refuge of those who want to stop some pro-life legislation from advancing. When Cornerstone fought for the current 24-week law, establishment Republicans vaguely claimed the bill was poorly drafted and “would be overturned in court” as an excuse to vote against it. In fact, the law was drafted so carefully that pro-abortion groups did not even attempt to challenge it in court.
Our current situation and next steps
In the days leading up to this hearing, we repeatedly warned pro-lifers that the pro-life movement was facing an existential threat. If even a moderate 15-week prohibition cannot reach the House floor, we said, no abortion restriction will ever be allowed to do so.
Some have alleged that this is “too pessimistic.” They say that because Christians should be positive, Cornerstone should not be alarmist. But if the situation is truly dire, then being “alarmist” is simply speaking the truth.
If someone tells you that House GOP Leadership is not purging all abortion restrictions from the party, ask them one simple question: under what circumstances will any abortion restriction be allowed to reach the House floor? If they imagine a restriction will be allowed to reach the floor next term, what—specifically—will be different? No one will be able to answer this question.
The truth is that the pro-life cause is being artificially terminated from the NHGOP in the same way that conservative views on marriage were forcibly discarded over a decade ago. Pro-lifers who passively accept this reality are embracing irreversible defeat.
Rep. Peternel’s constituents should ask her a similar question.
From last Wednesday the 22nd, until Saturday the 26th, Peternel told numerous people that she was working against her own bill for a simple reason: because she did not want to bring any abortion restriction to the House floor.
On Sunday the 27th, however, Peternel pivoted and adopted NHRTL’s last-minute claims: that the bill was actually too moderate, selling out babies younger than 15 weeks.
If Rep. Peternel now maintains that the bill was too moderate, did not go far enough, or that she discovered objectionable wording the day before the committee hearing, ask her one simple question: Will you introduce a heartbeat ban, written to your specifications, next year?
The answer, as everyone close to these events knows, is clear: Rep. Peternel will not attempt to bring an abortion restriction to the floor again. Nor will any abortion restriction be allowed to proceed to the House floor under current House Republican leadership.
Pro-lifers do have one final chance to do pro-life advocacy. Although it is a longshot, Rep. Peternel’s “motion to withdraw” her bill could technically be defeated on the House floor.
This would at least allow the remaining pro-life reps to make their voices heard in a roll call vote. Tell your representative to vote against Rep. Peternel’s motion to withdraw.
Remind your representatives that they answer to you, not Republican leadership. Ask them to vote ITL on the motion to withdraw HB 476 on the House floor. Look up your rep HERE.
“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’”
