New Hampshire Joins Planned Parenthood Attacks

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


It’s getting hard to keep up with the attacks on reproductive health care around the US, so forgive us for being a little tardy on the news that New Hampshire has also cut support for Planned Parenthood, joining Indiana, Kansas, North Carolina, and Texas in efforts to defund the organization.

The state’s executive council—an elected five-person panel that advises the governor—decided to slash the $1.8 million in funding to Planned Parenthood at the end of June. Thanks to a rather unique government set-up, the panel gets to approve all grants over $10,000. This essentially means they get a say over the state’s governor, which is currently Democrat John Lynch. The panel, which is currently made up of all Republican members, voted 3-2 to block funding to Planned Parenthood. Republicans also hold the majority in the state legislature, but a legislative effort to block funding to the group failed. So the council took it up. Their reasoning? It’s a doozy:

“I am opposed to abortion,” said Raymond Wieczorek, a council member who voted against the contract. “I am opposed to providing condoms to someone. If you want to have a party, have a party but don’t ask me to pay for it.”

Let’s start with the fact that the two halves of that quote don’t even gibe. Because of preexisting federal law, no public funds are used for abortions; Planned Parenthood is only allowed to use federal funds for all the other services it provides. But the idea that Planned Parenthood otherwise exists only to provide condoms, or to that condoms only serve to let women “party,” or that we should punish women who have sex in the first place is, well, wrong at best and offensive at worst.

Since 20 percent the budget for Planned Parenthood in New Hampshire comes from these funds, the group is already having to reduce its services. And by “services,” I don’t mean a party bus with a bucket of condoms by the keg. Last I checked, pap smears weren’t all that fun. As the Huffington Post reports:

“We can’t even provide patients with antibiotics for urinary tract infections or STDs anymore,” said Jennifer Frizzell, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. She said Planned Parenthood has had to turn away 20 to 30 patients a day who are showing up to refill their prescriptions.

“We have to send them away with a prescription knowing that without insurance, they have to pay the full cost of that at a local pharmacy, and many patients have told us they’re not gonna have the money in their budget to afford to fill those prescriptions.”

Like every other effort to defund Planned Parenthood around the country, it’s low-income women and those who lack health insurance who will suffer most from the cuts in New Hampshire.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate