Friends,
Planned Parenthood pulled out of Title X, the federally-funded family planning program, last week because of the Trump administration’s abortion gag rule. There are 16,000 Title X patients in the Granite State, and Planned Parenthood serves 11,000 of them at the five locations in our state.
The administration's gag rule forces providers to choose between accepting funding that keeps doors open and helping patients. The rule bars doctors and providers from having conversations with their patients about their right to choose what is best for themselves.
Millions of American rely on Planned Parenthood for their reproductive and medical needs. Planned Parenthood doesn’t just provide checkups, birth control, and STI testing for low-income individuals -- they provide cancer screenings, too.
The Washington Post reported that 1.6 million women and girls will now have to seek out new healthcare providers -- and many will go without necessary care.
These sort of attacks and extreme policies on women’s healthcare must be stopped.
In 2013, I ran for the Executive Council after the Republicans defunded Planned Parenthood here in New Hampshire because I knew we had to stop playing politics with womens’ healthcare.
I led the fight to reverse that decision and fund Planned Parenthood’s family planning and cancer screenings services for more than 13,000 women and men in New Hampshire -- and I’ll keep fighting the ongoing attacks down in Washington.
Thank you for standing with me.
Chris
