“Planned Parenthood health centers provide comprehensive preventive care and family planning services that enable Granite Staters to stay healthy and thrive. During my career in public service, I have always stood up for critical funding of family planning providers and for a woman’s fundamental right to make her own personal, private medical decisions,” said Senator Maggie Hassan. “Reproductive rights are on the line like never before, with politicians in Concord stripping funding for Planned Parenthood health centers and passing an abortion ban. I am proud to receive the Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s endorsement and to work together to expand, defend, and protect the right of Granite Staters and all women to control their own destiny.”
“Senator Hassan has been a steadfast champion for reproductive rights and her re-election is of paramount importance in the fight to defend and expand access to reproductive health care,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. “As states across the country threaten access to basic care, re-electing Senator Hassan will be a critical step in protecting reproductive rights and health.”
The endorsement comes as New Hampshire Republicans, led by Governor Chris Sununu, have spent the past months attacking reproductive health care and breaking with New Hampshire’s long bipartisan history of protecting reproductive rights. In June, Governor Chris Sununu signed into law a budget that included an abortion ban with no exceptions for rape, incest or fatal fetal anomaly, mandatory ultrasounds, and felony penalties for doctors. Just a few months later, Republican members of the Executive Council voted to defund Planned Parenthood and other family planning clinics across the state. If Republicans regain control of the U.S. Senate and Mitch McConnell becomes the Majority leader, they will seek to pass similar abortion restrictions nationally.
Senator Hassan has long been a champion for reproductive rights and ensuring access to quality, affordable health care. As Governor, Hassan worked to restore family planning funds after then-Councilor Chris Sununu and other Republicans on the Executive Council defunded Planned Parenthood. In the U.S. Senate, Senator Hassan has pushed to protect Title X funding for family planning clinics like Planned Parenthood, which provide important health care services for thousands of Granite Staters. She also worked to lift the domestic Gag Rule put in place by the Trump administration, which prevents women from accessing important health services at family planning centers. And after the Executive Council defunded family planning clinics earlier this month, she pushed the Department of Health and Human Services to provide supplemental grants to health care clinics hurt by the decision to ensure Granite Staters continued to receive affordable primary and preventive care.
Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s endorsement comes as the threat to the constitutional right to an abortion has never been greater. In 2021 alone, nearly 600 state abortion restrictions have been introduced across the country; over 100, including in New Hampshire, have been enacted into law — more than in any year since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. In the coming months, the Supreme Court could allow states to ban abortion altogether. With a slim majority in the Senate and progress hanging precariously in the balance, Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s endorsement of Senator Hassan represents a major push to protect and expand the pro-reproductive health and rights majority in the United States Senate.
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