CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – In a state where residents strongly favor abortion rights, abortion opponents are closer than they have been in decades to changing New Hampshire law.

The success of a bill to require parental notification before girls under 18 can get abortions has some wondering if this bastion of fiscal conservatism is becoming socially conservative, too.

“It breaks the mold,” said Roger Stenson, executive director of Citizens for Life, an anti-abortion group. “All bets are off, really.”

After soundly defeating similar bills for years, the House passed this one by six votes last month. A budget debate has dominated the Statehouse ever since, but the bill may pass the Republican-dominated Senate, too.

GOP Gov. Craig Benson is eager to sign it. He signaled his support in January by designating the 30th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion as “Restore the Right to Life Day.”

New Hampshire has a storied reputation for frugality, but has consistently supported keeping abortion legal. A poll of likely voters taken last fall by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center found only 10 percent opposed abortion in all circumstances.

“I attribute that to the lack of a strong social conservative movement in New Hampshire,” said Andrew Smith, the center’s director. “There is no religious right to speak of.”

“I don’t see this as the crack in the dam,” Smith said of the bill.

But the measure is nonetheless surprising.

New Hampshire has a long history of electing fiscal conservatives regardless of their position on abortion, political observers and pollsters say.

But in a campaign fought mainly over taxes last year, voters elected a legislature that is more Republican and more conservative – fiscally and socially – than any in recent history.

The election followed a quiet recruiting campaign by anti-abortion activists, said GOP state Rep. Kathleen Souza. Souza sponsored a parental consent bill that failed last year.

Whether it was taxes or the recruiting, Republicans picked up 26 seats in the 400-member House and many moderates were replaced by conservatives, House Republican Whip Rogers Johnson said.

“It’s a different House,” Johnson said, noting that a moderate group called the “Main Street Republicans” saw its membership cut in half, to about 40.

The bill’s supporters also used a new strategy, appealing to the state’s libertarian streak by insisting the issue is about parental rights, not abortion. Indeed, the main sponsor is state Rep. Edward Kerns, a young, first-term Republican who supports abortion rights.

Compared to years past, “the fight was different,” Kerns said. “This time it was a pro-parents issue. Before, it was a pro-life issue.”

Stenson said allowing girls to get abortions without parental consent makes no sense when parents must consent to any other surgery, and even to a child getting a tattoo.

The bill’s opponents insist it is about abortion.

“It reverses Roe v. Wade, to some extent, because it has the New Hampshire Legislature defining where life begins,” said Senate Democratic Leader Sylvia Larsen. The bill defines a fetus as “any individual human organism from fertilization until birth.”

Larsen and other opponents say most girls tell their parents if they plan to get abortions. They say those who do not tell include victims of incest and other abuse at home.

“You cannot mandate harmonious family relationships where none exist,” Larsen said.

The bill would let a judge waive the notice requirement when appropriate.

Twenty-one states already have parental notification laws, according to the National Right to Life Committee. In four states, the laws are inactive because they are being challenged in court.

The bill’s prospects in the New Hampshire Senate are hard to judge. Republicans have an 18-6 majority, but some may break with the governor to oppose the bill. Democrats are unified in opposition, Larsen said.

Souza believes the Senate vote will be “very close,” while Jennifer Frizzell of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England said “we have a real good chance of defeating this.”

AP-ES-04-25-03 1403EDT