Pro-Choice Governors Don't Sign Abortion Bans: Fact Checking Chris Sununu's Political Record

In 2015, then Executive Councilor Chris Sununu cast the deciding vote to defund Planned Parenthood health centers in New Hampshire, jeopardizing access to family planning care for thousands of Granite Staters.
As Governor, Sununu vetoed a budget that provided critical stop-gap funding for family planning providers to protect against President Trump’s domestic gag rule. [Seacoast Online, 8/24/19]
As Governor, Sununu signed a budget that underfunded the Family Planning Program and silently watched his Republican colleagues gut that program by rejecting contracts with three reproductive health providers, including PPNNE.

As a first-time candidate for governor in 2016, Chris Sununu laid out a 5-point plan for restricting reproductive freedom in New Hampshire.
In 2020, Sununu vetoed the Reproductive Health Parity Act, which would have removed financial barriers for people seeking access to abortion.
As candidate for governor in 2020, Chris Sununu said he wasn’t “looking to make any changes on that. I’m a pro-choice governor...I don’t think we’re looking to make any abortion restrictions in this state.”
Nine months later, in 2021, Governor Sununu signed New Hampshire’s first modern abortion ban into law. The original law banned the procedure at or after 24 weeks and had narrow exceptions, and none for fatal fetal diagnoses, rape, or incest. Sununu’s abortion ban also mandated that all people seeking abortion care, at all stages of pregnancy, first undergo an ultrasound, regardless of medical necessity.
As a candidate for governor in 2022, Chris Sununu said he wasn’t “looking to make any other changes in terms of law” but would not rule out signing another abortion ban into law if it was part of another state budget package.

On November 30, 2021: Chris Sununu: “In terms of this Dobbs case down in Washington, that is not an overturn of Roe v. Wade. It has to do with viability and all this other kind of stuff...I’m not really paying attention to that case. So we’ll see where it goes but that case does not decide Roe v. Wade.”
On June 28, 2022, four days after the Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade: Chris Sununu: “Nothing really changes.”
On May 24, 2023, on The View: Chris Sununu: “Dobbs said states can make their choices, so they’re going to. And that’s a good thing.”

Chris Sununu: “Well, look, I’m the first governor in 40 years to sign an abortion ban. Republican governors before me never signed that. I’ve done more on the pro-life issue, if you will, than anyone.”

In 2018, Sununu put his full support behind Justice Kavanaugh. Because of his appointment to SCOTUS, it’s a very likely scenario that by this time next year, 26 states - which is the equivalent of 36 million, or half, of all women of reproductive age - will lose access to safe, legal abortion.