N.H. Rep. Katy Peternel on Monday sought to withdraw her bill aimed at prohibiting most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, but the measure remains in consideration pending a vote by the full House next month.

New Hampshire law now permits abortions up to 24 weeks. The procedure is also allowed later in pregnancy if there is a fatal fetal defect or a threat to a pregnant woman’s life.

Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte has promised to veto any bill that makes the state’s law on abortion more restrictive.

“After careful review, it has become clear that there is a flaw in the bill that prevents us from moving forward in a logical, reasonable, or obvious way,” Peternel, R-Wolfeboro, said in an emailed statement about House Bill 476. “Without consensus among the pro-life organizations across New Hampshire, this bill does not have the broad support it needs to advance successfully out of committee.”

She didn’t immediately return a call for comment on the exact reasons for her actions.

It is unusual for a bill’s prime sponsor to seek to withdraw it after a public hearing has already been scheduled.

“The withdrawal of HB 476 allows the legislature to refocus its efforts on other legislation that addresses the needs and concerns of New Hampshire residents,” Peternel said.

Opponents and supporters jammed into a room in the Legislative Office Building in Concord Monday for the bill’s public hearing before the House Judiciary Committee.

Rep. Bob Lynn, R-Windham, the committee chairman, allowed the hearing to go forward, saying that in order for a bill to be withdrawn at this stage, the request would have to go before the full House, which isn’t going to meet again until Feb. 6.

Last week, Lynn submitted an amendment to remove the 15-week limit from HB 476 and mandate the gathering of data on abortions performed in the state, including the method used and the gestational age of the fetus. Medical providers and patients wouldn’t be identified.

Dr. Oglesby Young, a retired Concord obstetrician-gynecologist and past president of the N.H. Medical Society, testified against HB 476 on Monday.

He said that when he was a third-year medical student, he saw a woman who was in septic shock after an illegal abortion.

This was before Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide. The high court overturned that decision in 2022 and left abortion regulation to the states.

Since then, abortion has become a particularly hot-button issue in New Hampshire and across the country.

Young said that before Roe, major medical complications from illegal abortions were not uncommon. “This young woman was an honor student,” he said. “She was captain of her basketball team in high school.

“I asked her if she’d informed her parents of her pregnancy. She confided in me that her father was responsible for the pregnancy and she would die before she told her mom she was pregnant. Unfortunately, a few days later, she did die.”

Young said he fears that such cases are now more likely than they were before Roe was reversed.

As Lynn tried to cut him off for having gone beyond his allotted time, Young said lawmakers should not be involved in decisions about medical care given to pregnant women.

“Abortion is not about politics,” Young said. “Providing private, safe health care to women gives them control over their bodies and the freedom to make this world a better place.”

Dr. Michelle Flynn, a retired internal medicine physician, also testified that early in her medical career, she decided against having an abortion after seeing an image of the fetus in an ultrasound at about 15 weeks of gestation. She already had a child of under a year old at the time.

“I thought, ‘I have a job. I have all this responsibility. Should I terminate the pregnancy?’ ” Flynn said.

“But honestly as a doctor, looking at that, that was a sentient human being, and I couldn’t dismember him. He’s now 30 years old and he’s an engineer. He works on artificial hearts and is married.”

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