An attempt by Democrats to reaffirm access to abortion in New Hampshire seemed to fall flat with the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

Sen. Debra Altschiller, a Democrat from Stratham, proposed a bill that would recognize abortion as a “critical component of comprehensive reproductive healthcare” and that seeks to prevent the state from infringing on current policy.

The bill wouldn’t change the application of New Hampshire’s current law, which allows abortions up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for fatal fetal conditions and the life of the mother but none for rape or incest. Altschiller said Senate Bill 260’s “tangible” effect would be the creation of an affirmative right to abortion up to that 24-week mark, contrary to the Fetal Life Protection Act, which invokes a ban on the procedure after that window of time.

Republicans said they don’t see the point.

Sen. Bill Gannon, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, questioned why they should enact legislation that wouldn’t make any material change.

In its current form, SB 260 is a bill like any other. If it passed, it could just as easily be repealed in the future – it wouldn’t carry the lasting weight of a constitutional amendment, which voters themselves must approve by a two-thirds margin.

“You’re still really standing on sand unless you got a constitutional amendment, which would be very hard to change. By doing this, another year and a half from now, we could be back here doing the same thing … You’re not cementing a right to anyone,” Gannon said. “Everything’s temporary that we do, unless maybe a little more cemented if we have a constitutional amendment, so I don’t see that you’re really giving anyone any more than we already have.”

Courtney Reed, a policy advocate at the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, argued the law is worth it for the time being. Courts could cite this statute if the right to abortion were infringed upon, she said.

“While this law is in place, it offers an added protection that is just not anywhere in the RSAs right now,” Reed said.

Abortion has taken a back seat in the Legislature this session, as efforts from both parties have petered out. SB 260 is a less aggressive pursuit of reproductive freedom than Democrats had initially proposed. A bill draft request by a leading House Democrat, which appeared to seek to more materially enshrine abortion access in New Hampshire, was withdrawn before the session started.

On the other side of the aisle, a group of Republicans sought early on to tighten the ban to 15 weeks but withdrew the bill from consideration in January after it failed to garner support from party leadership. Gov. Kelly Ayotte pledged on the campaign trail not to further restrict the state law.

Charlotte Matherly is the statehouse reporter for the Concord Monitor and Monadnock Ledger-Transcript in partnership with Report for America. Follow her on X at @charmatherly, subscribe to her Capital Beat newsletter and send her an email at cmatherly@cmonitor.com.