Also on today’s menu:
Compromise On Gun Control Legislation
Education Department Scrutinizes Book Choices
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InDepthNH.org reports that New Hampshire Republicans John Sellers of Bristol, Dave Testerman of Franklin, and Kristine Perez of Londonderry, along with Senator Carrie Gendreau, have filed legislation that would ban abortions beyond 15 days after conception, except in cases of medical emergency: “a condition in which an abortion is necessary to preserve the life of the pregnant woman whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself, or when continuation of the pregnancy will create a serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”
The bill does not specify exceptions in cases of rape or incest, and includes fines of $10,000 to $100,000 for any health care provider “who knowingly performs or induces an abortion in violation of this subdivision and knows that the fetus has a gestational age of at least 15 days, or consciously disregards a substantial risk that the fetus has a gestational age of at least 15 days.”
The bill will go to the House floor in the 2024 legislative session.
Discussion: Abortion is a difficult issue. New Hampshire’s current abortion law bans abortion after 24 weeks, with exceptions for fatal fetal diagnoses and when the life of the pregnant woman is at risk. It also requires the notification of the parent of anyone below the age of 18 seeking the procedure. Many people believe 24 weeks is too short an opening, although most people support some limits on abortion, especially in late-term pregnancies. For those who believe that all abortions are wrong because life begins at conception, the 24-week opening is too long. Tests can detect pregnancies between eight and 14 days after the last menstrual cycle, with confirmation at six to eight weeks. Fetal heartbeat can be detected five or six weeks into pregnancy, but one in three people confirm their pregnancies after six weeks, one in five after seven weeks. Sometimes it takes as long as 12 weeks to realize one is pregnant — still well within the Granite State’s current abortion law, but too late for a 15-day ban. Then there are those who argue that any ban is government intrusion into personal rights and that the decision should be between a woman (or a couple) and their physician.
Compromise On Gun Control Legislation
Federal law prohibits anyone who has been determined to be mentally ill or who has been committed to a psychiatric hospital from buying a gun from a federally licensed dealer or possessing a firearm, but New Hampshire is among about a dozen states that do not require that mental health records be submitted to the FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System for gun purchases.
Since the shooting in Concord that killed New Hampshire Hospital security officer Bradley Haas, that may change. Representatives Terry Roy (R-Deerfield) and David Meuse (D-Portsmouth) have been on opposite sides of firearms legislation in the past, but they are supporting a bill that would send certain mental health records to the background check system for firearm purchases.
At the same time, both Roy and Meuse want the bill, which has not yet been drafted, to provide for people who were denied a gun purchase due to an involuntary emergency admission to retain their rights to purchase and own firearms in the future to avoid perpetuating the myth that people with mental illness cannot get well.
“I don’t think anybody wants a firearm in the hands of somebody who is subject to things like acts of psychosis and who is literally not in control of themselves, and I think that’s the thing that we are really trying to stop,” Meuse said. “But one of the things that we want to make sure of is … there’s a way to reverse this process when people get better.”
Discussion: In most matters of debate, there is a compromise position that satisfies the underlying problem. If the bill is properly drafted, it will balance gun ownership rights with the need to avoid endangering innocent people.
Education Department Scrutinizes Book Choices
Commissioner Frank Edelblut and his deputies at the New Hampshire Department of Education have been heightening their scrutiny of books available at schools in the face of pressure to remove titles that have LGBTQ+ characters or deal with mature or sexual themes. A department spokesman told NHPR that its goal is “perhaps finding some common themes that will be useful in these matters across the state. That does not imply an objective of superimposing a singular standard across different communities so much as gaining an understanding so that we can all communicate effectively with our families and students.”
State education officials have advised schools that they need to give parents or guardians advance notice of any “course material related to human sexuality.”
Current state law largely leaves it up to local school boards to decide what books and curricula are appropriate for their district, but lawmakers are grappling with competing views about curriculum and library material.
Discussion: Coming from a position that exposure to a variety of viewpoints is essential for the development of critical thinking (“The goal is for the student to have reading experiences which provide them the chance to learn and reflect and reframe what they know about the world,” says John Warner), I oppose book bans. However, age-appropriateness is something that local school boards should keep in mind. Even that is a fraught issue, because students mature at different rates, and I believe it is important for them to have access to answers to their questions. What school districts need to avoid, however, is setting a curriculum that forces young students to read mature material before they are capable of understanding it. It is not necessarily wrong for the Department of Education to take an interest in how schools choose their books, because it can help guide districts that are struggling for the proper balance; however, it should avoid imposing any particular constraints on local decisions, other than keeping parents informed of what those decisions are.
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