On Tuesday the Senate Judiciary Committee will consider a bill repealing a law that would create a 25 foot buffer zone around facilities where abortions are performed.
The bill follows a Supreme Court decision striking down similar law in Massachusetts.
The New Hampshire law never went into effect after it was challenged in Federal court.
The bill’s sponsor, Representative Kathleen Souza, is an anti-abortion demonstrator. She says she would have introduced the bill even absent a Supreme Court decision.
“This buffer zone not only was – or would be if it were in place – an abridgement of our free speech, but it physically would stop us from helping women.”
Backers of the New Hampshire buffer zone law say it differs from Massachusetts’s law in which behavior is banned; buffer distance; and severity of sanctions.