Planned Parenthood of Northern New England Continues to Navigate Patient Needs After Roe v. Wade Was Overturned

CONCORD - Two months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the nation is in a public health crisis. Nearly a third of U.S. states have abortion bans in effect, meaning 1 in 3 American women have already lost the right to control their own bodies. 

Sixteen states have bans on abortion, including nine where abortion is completely inaccessible, with three more in Tennesse, Idaho, and Texas taking effect this week. 

Statement from Kayla Montgomery, VP of Public Affairs for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England:

“In the two months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, we continue to see the fallout of this devastating and cruel decision. Already, 1 in 3 American women and more people who can get pregnant have already lost the right to access safe, legal abortion care in their home state.

Without proactive protections for abortion rights in state law, the future of abortion access in New Hampshire is in jeopardy. We need everyone – at every level of government – to fight to protect access to the full range of reproductive health care. Instead, the Executive Council has once again defunded the New Hampshire Family Planning Program and put access to preventative health care -- even birth control -- at risk for thousands of Granite Staters.

Everyone deserves access to essential health care, free of barriers or political roadblocks. Planned Parenthood will never stop fighting for our patients’ right to access abortion. We’re not backing down.”

New PPNNE Data*:

• Abortion patients from banned or deeply restricted states:  PPNNE continues to see an increase in patients seeking abortion care from out of state. Patients’ home states now include Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Louisiana, Ohio, South Dakota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Patients’ reasons for traveling to northern New England vary from established ties to the region, available appointments in their timeframe, and seeing our states are locations with increased safety and privacy.
• Birth Control: 
  • Birth control visits are up 20% since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022.
  • Average appt/day for LARC (long acting reversible contraception) appointments are up over pre-decision numbers by about 10%.

• Website data: Decision Day marked the largest one-day spike of organic traffic to our website ppnne.org that we’ve ever experienced. We saw increases of 450-650% in sessions, pageviews, and new users on June 24^th compared to the daily average for the first 23 days of June.

Anecdotes from Patients 

• PPNNE saw a patient from Texas who has insurance but they required a referral from their primary care physician. The patient was afraid to tell their doctor due to the abortion ban in Texas and was afraid they’d be turned in to the authorities. We provided this patient with compassionate and non-judgmental care, and the Laura Fund covered the full cost of the appointment.

* In order to best protect our patients’ privacy, all patient data shared is reflective of PPNNE’s three state presence of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.  

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About Planned Parenthood of Northern New England (PPNNE) – PPNNE is the region’s largest provider of reproductive and sexual health care services, serving more than 34,000 patients annually. They have 15 health centers across Maine (4), New Hampshire (4), and Vermont (7).