New Hampshire Rejects Family Planning Contracts with Abortion Providers

The Granite State is showing its increasingly pro-life bent by defunding Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers who were being considered for state contracts. The state’s Executive Council, part of the state’s executive branch but whose members are elected by voters in the state’s five districts, has veto power over state contracts in excess of $10,000.

The Council recently made waves by rejecting contracts for “family planning” services that Governor Chris Sununu proposed should go to Planned Parenthood and several independent abortion clinics.

“I brought these contracts forward because I support them, just as I have every year as Governor, because they protect women’s health and it is the right thing to do,” Sununu said in a statement. “Today’s action to vote down funding like cancer screenings and other women’s health services is incredibly disappointing and not something I agree with.”

But the Council expressed fears that the abortion sellers would “mingle” the contract funds with their other funds used for abortions, contrary to state law.

“The three reproductive health care facilities that wanted this money did not meet the statutory requirements of proving that there would be no mingling of the funds with the abortion business that they are in,” Councilor David Wheeler said after the vote.

New Hampshire recently passed legislation requiring that the state confirm a “physical and financial” separation between family planning programs and any abortion clinics they operate.

Planned Parenthood was predictably upset with the Executive Council vote.

“Today, four Executive Councilors chose to ignore public health experts and put their own views before the health and safety of their constituents,” Kayla Montgomery, Vice President of Public Affairs for the local Planned Parenthood stated. “Healthy communities and healthy families start with access to quality, affordable health care, and Planned Parenthood has been a trusted provider in the Granite State for nearly 50 years. This defund jeopardizes care for nearly 12,000 patients and disproportionately impacts low income and marginalized people – who have been hit the hardest during the pandemic.”

The money will presumably be redirected to family planning agencies that do not perform abortions, negating the abortion industry’s dire warnings about patients being left without any recourse.

Planned Parenthood and the other abortion sellers could, of course, simply separate their facilities and finances when it comes to family planning services and abortions, but prior experience at the federal level revealed that the abortion giant is unwilling to bend in the slightest to meet such requirements.

Kudos to the New Hampshire Executive Council for taking this step to defund these abortion businesses. Taxpayers should not be paying for abortions, and these elected officials understand that.

Photo from Shutterstock.