New Hampshire

NH abortion data collection bill latest flare-up over reproductive rights

Published

2 years ago

April 20, 2024

NH abortion data collection bill latest flare-up over reproductive rights

Todd Bookman
| New Hampshire Public Radio

On a party-line vote, Republicans in the New Hampshire Senate recently approved a bill that would require abortion providers to share certain data about the procedures they perform with state public health officials.

Forty-six other states already have similar laws in place, making New Hampshire an outlier in the dissemination of abortion statistics.

“I’ve heard debates on the floor many times that we just don’t have the information, we don’t have the data,” Republican Sen. Regina Birdsell said on the Senate floor last week. “Well, guess what: This will do it.”

But for Democrats, the proposal, which was added late in the legislative process and therefore not subject to a public hearing, is the GOP’s latest attempt to chip away at abortion rights and curtail personal freedoms.

“Ever since the Dobbs decision, we have been living in a dystopian horror show with control of pregnant bodies the main plot line,” Democrat Sen. Debra Altschiller said during debate on the measure.

New Hampshire Republicans have tried unsuccessfully numerous times in recent years to require abortion providers to release certain statistics. The latest effort calls for providers to share the date and location of each abortion, the method used, including if a medication was prescribed, as well as share the state of residence of the pregnant patient, and the gestational age of the fetus.

The state Department of Health and Human Services would then publish data annually on abortions in New Hampshire, though the bill doesn’t clarify if the information would be released in an aggregated form, or if the county or even the zip code of the provider would be disclosed.

Democrats argued that level of data shared publicly could put providers at risk for harassment or other targeting; they also questioned how gestational age should be determined by the provider, since the bill lacks any detail.

“This amendment would potentially require a government-forced, potentially medically unnecessary, intrusive trans-vaginal ultrasound,” Sen. Becky Whitley said during a debate last Friday that grew tense at times. “That should send chills down the spine of every woman in the state.”

Senate Majority Leader Sharon Carson, a Republican, rose to her feet, saying she was baffled by the claim.

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing here. I really and truly cannot,” said Carson. “There’s no requirement for any kind of testing here. No ultrasound, no nothing.”

Carson accused Democrats of spreading misinformation about the bill, and in a statement this week reiterated that an ultrasound is not the only way providers could determine age in compliance with the bill.

In practice, providers say ultrasounds are performed before abortions when it makes sense for the patient. But there are other ways to determine gestational age, including using the date of the last menstrual cycle. States including Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont permit abortion providers to estimate the age of the fetus using that information.

A tool for sound policy, or for scoring political points

Abortion providers in New Hampshire say they aren’t opposed to producing and sharing protected, anonymized data, as long as it is used to advance public health policy.

“However, where we need clarity whenever we consider the request to supply abortion data is really we need to know specifically or with some clarity, what the anticipated public health benefit is and how the data may be used,” said Sandi Denoncour, executive director of Lovering Health Center in Greenland.

Abortion rights supporters point to what they see as a history of states using reporting requirements to bog down abortion providers with paperwork. Other states have also required providers to collect invasive or what they see as irrelevant information about the patient, including their history of contraceptive use.

“They’re not really being used for public health purposes,” said Rachel Jones, a researcher with the Guttmacher Institute, one of the country’s leading research institutions on abortion. “They’re being used to further stigmatize abortion and increase the burden on the facilities that provide this care.”

While New Hampshire, along with California, Maryland and New Jersey are the only states that don’t have reporting mandates, Guttmacher’s website does maintain abortion statistics for procedures performed in New Hampshire.

In 2023, Guttmacher estimates there were 2,400 abortions performed in the state.

That data is based on voluntary reporting by local clinics, including Lovering Health Center and Planned Parenthood of Northern New England.

Those clinics willingly share aggregate abortion numbers, they said, because they trust Guttmacher to use the data for research purposes.

After clearing the state Senate on a party line vote, the bill mandating reporting statistics now heads to the New Hampshire House, where it will get a full public hearing and could be amended.

Gov. Chris Sununu has previously said he supports the state collecting data.

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.

Editor’s note: State Sen. Debra Altschiller, D-Stratham, is the wife of Howard Altschiller, Seacoast Media Group’s executive editor.

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New Hampshire

6 people injured after floor collapses at New Hampshire wedding venue

Published

12 hours ago

March 23, 2026

Press Room

6 people injured after floor collapses at New Hampshire wedding venue

Six people were taken to area hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries after a floor collapsed at a wedding venue in Tamworth, New Hampshire, around 4:30 p.m. Saturday, a spokesperson for the New Hampshire State Fire Marshal’s Office said.

The collapse happened while a wedding party of about 140 people were present, according to a joint release from the Tamworth Fire/Rescue Department and the State Fire Marshal’s Office. The office confirmed there were no fatalities and said late Saturday that four of the people treated at the hospital had already been released.

A phone call to the venue, the Preserve at Chocorua, was not answered. Tamworth, a town of about 2,800 people, is around 115 miles (185 kilometers) north of Concord, New Hampshire, near the western border of Maine. Phone calls to the MaineHealth Memorial Hospital went unanswered Saturday night.

The Fire Marshal’s Office said while more than 100 people gathered in a building called the Sap House at the venue, the floor buckled creating a 20-foot by 20-foot opening and sending about 70 people into the basement. Several people were trapped by the fallen beams and by farm equipment that had been stored on the lower floor.

An office spokesperson said in a release late Saturday that before first responders arrived, other guests and staff helped some of the people who had fallen climb out of the basement with the aid of ladders, and were rendering first aid to people with minor injuries. It was unclear how many people were treated at the scene, and investigators are still determining the extent of injuries.

A photo from the Fire Marshal’s Office shows a chandelier and white bunting decorating the ceiling above the buckled floor boards, as well as stacked benches that had been used for seating for the wedding before the collapse.

A photo provided by the New Hampshire State Fire Marshal’s Office shows the buckled floor that collapsed Saturday, sending nearly 70 wedding guests into the basement of a building in Tamworth, N.H. Saturday, March 21, 2026. (New Hampshire State Fire Marshal’s Office via AP)

The Fire Marshal’s Office is investigating the collapse along with the Tamworth Fire/Rescue Department, a spokesperson said Saturday. Investigators believe the building “was over capacity” prior to the floor collapse, a spokesperson said in a release.

A first responder who arrived on scene shortly after 911 calls came in described half the floor of the building where the wedding ceremony was set to take place as having fallen into the basement over scanner traffic listened to on Broadcastify. He asked for more first responders to talk to witnesses, saying there were about 145 people present at the event. The responder also said they were carefully pulling people out of the building basement.

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New Hampshire

Utility Pole Fire Knocks Out Power To Nearly 2,000 Unitil Customers in Concord

Published

1 day ago

March 22, 2026

Press Room

Utility Pole Fire Knocks Out Power To Nearly 2,000 Unitil Customers in Concord

CONCORD, NH — About 2,000 Unitil electric customers were without power on Sunday afternoon, possibly due to a fire involving a utility pole in the North End.

Just before 4:30 p.m., Capital Region Fire Dispatch received a call from a Prospect Street resident reporting a utility pole on fire, down behind homes in the neighborhood toward the east, near Horseshoe Pond. Not long before that call, power outages were being reported in the North and West End neighborhoods.

Unitil later told fire dispatch the company believed the pole fire was the cause of the power outage. The cause of the pole fire was not known at the time of publication.

At around 4:30 p.m., 1,896 customers, about 2.3 percent of Unitil customers in the city, were without power. The outage spread from Swenson Avenue off and along North State Street to Fisk and Little Pond roads, Auburn Street, Ridge Road, and Penacook Street, and to most of the area north of Washington Street and surrounding White Park and the Old North Cemetery. Sections of downtown, in the area of North State Street, Centre Street, and Loudon Road by Bridge Street, were also without power.

A battalion commander reported seeing smoke and told dispatch to tell Unitil they would be able to access the pole by Horseshoe Pond, not Prospect Street.

News 603 posted a video on Facebook.

The Capital Plaza Towers, at 15 Pitman St., reported a tenant stuck in an elevator, according to scanner chatter. Streetlights were out all over North Main Street.

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