Rep. Katy Peternel: It’s not backward to consider the life of the unborn

This op-ed was originally published in the Union Leader on October 9, 2024.

I read with interest Gail DiMaggio’s recent letter likening protections for the preborn with the tragic rate of maternal deaths due to childbirth complications in the 18th and 19th centuries. She is right that medical care has come a long way, and death from childbirth is now exceedingly rare. But she loses me when she claims maternal deaths from past centuries are equivalent to placing any protections on preborn children today.

Are our laws denying women access to emergency medical care? Absolutely not.

By returning the question of abortion rights and limits to the states, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision dictated no particular abortion policy. The truth is that every state, regardless of their particular limitations on abortion, allows physicians to intervene when the mother’s health or life is at risk.

Let’s take New Hampshire’s own law that was enacted just two years ago. Abortion is unrestricted up until six months, and after that point, there are exceptions for fatal fetal anomalies and the health of the mother.

For those who bristle at any protections for the preborn, the answer seems to be absolutely no limits on elective abortion. Tellingly, we never talk about those lost lives. However, when DiMaggio paints the dire picture of women unable to receive life-giving medical care, that is not because of the law. Dobbs in no way impacted legal standards when it comes to medical care. Every state’s malpractice and abortion laws ultimately rely on the physician’s good faith or reasonable medical judgment to determine whether a patient requires urgent care.

It’s not about going back to a darker time when those tiny gravestones were all too common. It’s about moving forward to compassionately consider the lives of both mothers and children.

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