Planned Parenthood of New Hampshire blasted Gov. Chris Sununu Tuesday for what it called “false and inflammatory rhetoric” regarding Granite State Democrats and abortion policy.
But when asked for specific examples of false statements by the governor, the pro-abortion organization had no answer.
Planned Parenthood New Hampshire Action Fund (PPNHAF) released its anti-Sununu statement after his interview on the Jack Heath radio show Tuesday morning. Heath asked Sununu about his Democratic opponent Sen. Tom Sherman’s opposition to the state’s current abortion law. It allows abortion for any reason during the first six months of pregnancy. Sherman opposes any limits on abortion, an issue the Rye Democrat has made a centerpiece of his campaign for governor.
Sununu said it is Democrats who have an abortion-issue problem.
“The fact that the Democrats are tripling down on the abortion issue is actually highlighting their extremism,” he said. “We’re not extreme. Dobbs happened, Roe v. Wade gets overturned, and nothing happens in New Hampshire. Women had the right to choose before and that hasn’t changed.
“The fact that [Democrats] go so extreme and they’ve now owned that, they’re okay with folks having an abortion right up until the moment of birth, that’s extreme. And they have to own that extremism,” Sununu said.
Planned Parenthood pounced.
“This inflammatory and false rhetoric is used to try to distract voters from anti-abortion politicians’ abysmal reproductive health records by peddling falsehoods about abortion care later in pregnancy,” said Kayla Montgomery, PPNHAF’s Vice President of Public Affairs. “No one is okay with abortion ‘up until the moment of birth’ because it simply doesn’t exist. That’s not how medicine, science, or pregnancy works.
“When abortion is needed later in pregnancy it’s due to complex situations like the health of the woman or the fetus. We know this because families in these complicated circumstances have been forced to bear their scars and relive their trauma in an effort to amend Chris Sununu’s cruel abortion ban – which he signed into law without any exceptions for rape, incest, or fatal fetal diagnoses.”
Montgomery’s claim that extreme late-term abortions, or “abortion later in pregnancy” as PPNH prefers, “simply don’t exist” echoed Sherman’s statement, also made on Heath’s radio show, that “there are no elective abortions performed in New Hampshire — we know this from data and testimony– after 24 weeks.”
NHJournal asked both Sherman and PPNHAF to provide “data” to support their claim that there are no elective, late-term abortions. Sherman declined to respond. Planned Parenthood said it doesn’t collect that information because their health centers do not deliver that care, which they said is provided in a hospital setting.
The Guttmacher Institute, one of the world’s leading pro-abortion organizations, reports that about 1.3 percent of all abortions nationwide are in the third trimester. Asked about the claim of “no elective late-term abortions,” the Institute told NHJournal, “We don’t track this data. The CDC does, but it doesn’t look like New Hampshire reported data on this subject.”
That was because the state of New Hampshire does not collect the data, due in part to opposition in the legislature from pro-abortion Democrats like Sherman. Asked if there is any way to know how many of the thousands of late-term abortions in the U.S. each year are elective or medically necessary, PPNHAF declined to respond.
And while PPNHAF claims Sununu’s description of Sherman’s position — legal abortion for any reason at any time during pregnancy — is “false and inflammatory,” that is also the policy supported by PPNHAF.
“We will always fight to ensure Granite Staters have access to the health care they need–including safe, legal abortion–without government interference because that’s the New Hampshire way,” Montgomery said.
Not all Democrats share that view. In fact, a St. Anslem College poll taken in August found about a quarter of Granite State Democrats support some limits on abortion, as do about 70 percent of the general population.
And, asks Kristen Day of Democrats For Life, “If there are no late-term abortions as Tom Sherman states, why worry about a 24-week limitation?”
Shannon McGinley of Cornerstone Action, which ran ads attacking Sununu for his pro-choice stances during the recent primary campaign, says the Planned Parenthood press release reveals more about the organization than the politicians it attacks.
“Once again, Planned Parenthood’s own conduct belies their propaganda. The law already has an exception for fatal fetal anomalies and for maternal health, but they and their allies are still fighting tirelessly, and have spent millions of dollars, to destroy the whole law,” McGinley said.
“They make no secret of their religious doctrine that there should be zero criminal penalties for the elective abortion of a nine-month-old viable baby. It’s time for New Hampshire media to start holding these organizations accountable for their obfuscation, and it’s time for our state government to stop treating this infanticidal extremist group as a serious healthcare provider.”
NOTE: This story has been updated to more accurately reflect PPNHAF’s views on the issue.
