Bipartisan Majority Rejects Out-of-Touch Measure to Defund Planned Parenthood in New Hampshire

76 Republican Elected Officials Vote in Support of Planned Parenthood

MANCHESTER, NH – Today, a bipartisan majority in the New Hampshire state legislature rejected a defunding bill that would have attempted to block women from getting basic preventive services at Planned Parenthood health centers across the state — including affordable birth control, cancer screenings, HIV testing and other essential care. Yesterday, Planned Parenthood New Hampshire Action Fund released a series of digital ads urging the legislature to reject the defunding bill and asking people to fight back by signing onto Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s “My Health, My Life. No Matter What.” pledge.

“Politicians across the country should take notice of what happened in New Hampshire today. Not only did we beat back an out-of-touch measure to block women from coming to Planned Parenthood — but we did so with support from 76 Republican elected officials. That’s because despite what some politicians and pundits might say — access to reproductive health care is not a partisan issue,” said Cecile Richards, president, Planned Parenthood Action Fund. “Americans want to continue moving forward — not backward — on women’s health; and that starts by recognizing that for women, the ability to decide whether and when to have children is key to economic success.”

More than 14,000 women, men and young people rely on Planned Parenthood health centers in New Hampshire for high-quality, affordable health care. With 33 percent of Planned Parenthood health centers providing care in rural or medically underserved areas statewide, Planned Parenthood serves as an essential source of primary and preventive health care in New Hampshire.

“Planned Parenthood has been a trusted source of high-quality, compassionate and affordable health care in New Hampshire for 50 years — and that’s not going to change, no matter what our opponents throw at us,” said Jennifer Frizzell, vice president of the Planned Parenthood New Hampshire Action Fund. “Today we saw our elected leaders from both parties stand up for New Hampshire women and families. We urge them to continue to support investments that are proven to work — including family planning and the full range of birth control, which have helped bring New Hampshire’s unintended pregnancy rates to the lowest in the nation. Investments in women's health services provide women with more control over their health and their own family planning.”

BACKGROUND:

Despite clear progress in public health outcomes thanks to investments in family planning,there were still 63,700 women in New Hampshire in need of publicly supported contraceptive services and supplies in 2012. In the absence of publicly supported family planning services, the rates of unintended pregnancy, unplanned birth and abortion would be 75 percent higher in New Hampshire, and the teen pregnancy rate would be 82 percent higher.
According to research released by the Guttmacher Institute, for every $1 we invest in family planning services, we save $7 in the long run.
A 2012 University of Michigan study found that fully one-third of the wage gains women have made since the 1960s are the result of access to oral contraceptives. This study also found that the decrease in the gap among 25–49-year-olds between men’s and women’s annual incomes “would have been 10 percent smaller in the 1980s and 30 percent smaller in the 1990s” in the absence of widespread legal birth control access.
Additional studies found that access to contraception contributed significantly to more young women obtaining at least some college education and to more college-educated women pursuing advanced professional degrees.