NOTES BETWEEN PRINTED EDITIONS
MORAL SANITY IN NEW HAMPSHIRE
There is more good news from the Granite State.
As we reported two weeks ago, both branches of the New Hampshire Legislature passed measures, on March 13th, to expand school choice for parents and students in that state, by widening eligibility for the groundbreaking Education Freedom Accounts program.
Now, the Legislature has advanced bills to safeguard women, protect minors and uphold parental rights. It has also defeated two measures which would imperil innocent life.
On March 27th, the State Senate passed, to be engrossed, SB 268—AN ACT permitting classification of individuals based on biological sex under certain limited circumstances.
This measure allows the segregation by sex of lavatories, locker rooms, athletic events, penal institutions, mental health hospitals, juvenile detention facilities and any treatment center to which a person is committed involuntarily.
The proposed law states that such classification by sex does not constitute unlawful discrimination, but rather rises to the level of a compelling state interest, in order to protect the privacy rights and the physical safety of all.
That same day, the Senate also passed SB 211—AN ACT relative to biological sex in student athletics.
This would require New Hampshire public schools to designate sports as male, female, or co-ed, banning biological males from competing on girls teams. It would apply to public middle and secondary schools (6-12), community colleges and the state university system.
It also mandates separate locker rooms for males and females.
As a measure of the earnestness of the bill’s sponsors, it also contains provisions protecting whistleblowers, and authorizing both injunctive relief for victims and the pursuit of civil remedies against offending institutions.
The Senate then approved SB 96—AN ACT relative to mandatory disclosure by school district employees to parents.
Known as the Honesty and Transparency in Education Act, this right to know bill gives statutory recognition to the right of parents to inquire about their children’s education.
It will compel all educators credentialed by the New Hampshire Department of Education to answer, truthfully and completely, any questions raised by parents “regarding material information relating to their child.”
The New Hampshire Senate also voted down SB 260—AN ACT relative to access to abortion care, which would have prohibited any state restriction on child killing prior to 24 weeks gestation.
Finally, the Senate reaffirmed its support for removing all family income caps on eligibility for Education Freedom Accounts by passing to be engrossed (the penultimate stage before enactment) SB 295-FN—AN ACT expanding the number of students eligible for education freedom accounts.
######
The New Hampshire House of Representatives, meanwhile, was busy vindicating parental rights and guarding children from from “transgender” deformities.
The House passed HB 377-FN—AN ACT relative to health care professionals administering hormone treatments and puberty blockers.
Called the Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act, this bill would prohibit the performance of a medical procedure upon or the prescription or issuance of a medication to, a minor (any unmarried or unemancipated person under 18 years of age) that is intended to delay puberty or alter the child’s perception of his or her gender.
Passed by a 30 vote margin (197 to 167), with two Democrats joining the Republican majority, it would make violations of this act by any healthcare provider a Class B Felony, which could result in a seven year term in a state prison.
The House also passed HB 191-FN—AN ACT providing criminal and civil penalties for the transporting of an unemancipated minor in order to obtain a surgical procedure without parental permission.
This bill, if it became law, would punish adults who facilitate a minor in the procuring of an abortion without parental consent. As with the previous measure, violations of this act would be a Class B Felony.
The bill also stipulates that the minor’s consent is not a defense against prosecution.
In another pro-life initiative, a House Finance sub-committee has voted, as part of proposed cuts to the Granite State’s $16 billion budget, to eliminate the New Hampshire Family Planning Program, which distributes, at taxpayer expense, abortifacient contraceptives.
Finally, it appears that a bill legalizing assisted suicide will not go forward in this legislative session, having been tabled in the House, albeit by the narrowest of margins.
What is needed now before any of these measures which have been passed can become law is concurrence (agreement on identical versions in both branches), final votes of enactment, and the signature of Governor Kelly Ayotte.
Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment:
“For generations, many conservatives and Republicans prioritized the capitalist agenda of corporate America, and uncritically endorsed the overseas interventions of neo-cons and their sponsors in the defense industry.
They offered little or no resistance to the cultural revolution being imposed upon this country by secular elites, the political Left and a lawless judiciary.
Now, for the first time in our lifetime, a class of counter-revolutionary conservatives has arisen.
My old master, Massachusetts State Representative Jim Craven, used to say that ‘courage is a comfortable virtue.’
It would seem that a whole new generation of conservatives is starting to understand that.”
