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When the University of New Hampshire Students for Life planned an event on campus, opponents of their pro-life politics took action. They planned their own event in the same building and simultaneously as a counterprotest to the Students for Life event.

This counterprogramming is significant because it was launched not by the pro-lifers’ fellow students but by UNH administrators — specifically the UNH Health and Wellness Center. And it is part of what pro-life UNH students say is a culture of opposition and intimidation at the Durham campus.

Katelyn Regan, president of the UNH pro-life group, said issues started soon after flyers went up advertising a talk by Kristan Hawkins, president of the Students for Life of America, called “Lies Pro Choicers Believe.”

Hawkins’ speech also features Isabel Brown, a conservative commentator with Turning Point USA. The event is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 18.

“We started to advertise and spread the word, and it didn’t take long for the UNH Health and Wellness Center to announce plans to host their own event. It’s in the exact same building at the exact same time,” Regan said.

The Health and Wellness Center is part of the UNH administration and is funded by taxpayers and student fees. It is not a student organization or a stand-alone entity.

The Health and Wellness Department’s “Choice & Cupcakes” is advertised as a “joyful celebration of abortion as healthcare.” The joyful abortion event also promised to give students safe sex supplies. Regan said the college was obviously trying to mute the pro-life event.

“There’s no way this was a coincidence,” Regan said.

And it’s not.

Erika Mantz, UNH’s executive director for media relations, confirmed the Health and Wellness Center planned their “Cupcakes & Choice” specifically to counter the pro-life speeches. After NHJournal and students began asking questions about the timing, the event was postponed.

“The ‘Cupcakes & Choice’ event was planned by a university office in response to student concerns,” Mantz told NHJournal. “Once the university learned the event had been planned for the same time as the Students for Life event, the decision was made to postpone it to avoid any perception that the university opposed a student event.

“UNH supports and is committed to protecting the principles of free speech, free expression, and the free exercise of religion,” Mantz added.

Not long after finding out about the school’s counterprogramming, Regan got an email from Patrick O’Neil, chairman of the UNH Student Activity Fee Committee, demanding that UNH Students for Life take down all the advertising for the event.

Regan told NH Journal that due to a mistake, the UNH Students for Life flyers included a disclaimer that the Student Activity Fee funds the event. That is not accurate, though the fee funds the printing of the flyers.

Because of that error, O’Neil wanted UNH Students for Life to take down all the flyers and replace them with copies with the correct disclaimer. All advertising materials for student club events that the college prints are required to have a disclaimer under school policy.

The school print shop had already approved the flyers, with no one catching the error. The demand to have the flyers removed clearly came after people on campus started to complain about pro-life speakers coming to the school, Regan said.

Regan told O’Neil in an email that he was free to find all of the erroneous flyers and replace them himself.

“Given that our flyers went through the approval process and nothing was flagged, we will not be taking down our flyers and will continue to use the flyers we have left over. Our event is a week away, and the incorrect print is so [small] that no one will pay too close attention to it anyway,” Regan wrote.

“Given that the mistake was overlooked by your office, if it is as big an issue as you make it seem, please feel free to take them down yourselves and replace them with the proper wording.”

Mantz said the mistake with the disclaimer should have been caught by the Student Activity Committee during the printing process. The UNH administration was not involved.

Regan has pushed against the UNH Health & Wellness pro-abortion culture for years. Health & Wellness staffers make referrals to the nearby abortion clinic for students seeking the procedure, but it does not refer pregnant women to the pro-life pregnancy center, which is closer to campus, she said.

In a podcast interview with NHJournal, Regan revealed that the Health and Wellness Center won’t allow students to even post information about crisis pregnancy centers on the same bulletin board covered with material from Planned Parenthood.

“Health and Wellness has refused to let us put up any life-affirming resource materials,” Regan said. “They have a brochure wall, and half of those brochures have a lovely little Planned Parenthood stamp on the bottom of them. They won’t let us.”

The UNH administration’s response to the pro-life event could be seen as a contradiction to its celebration of success supporting free speech on campus. UNH is ranked the third-best school in the U.S. for protecting and promoting free speech by FIRE, a national watchdog organization.

Littleton police are still investigating vandalism that targeted the town’s pro-life pregnancy center. Months after the incident no arrests have been made. 

Left-wing violence directed at pro-life pregnancy resource centers like Littleton’s Pathways Pregnancy Care Center has surged over the past year. The Catholic News Agency has tracked more than 100 incidents of what it calls “pro-abortion vandalism” since the leak of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs in May 2022. Two of the pro-life facilities were firebombed.

For months, Republicans and pro-life groups have complained that the Biden Department of Justice had not prosecuted a single case. In January,  the DOJ brought charges against two reputed members of the extremist pro-abortion group Jane’s Revenge for a string of attacks on pregnancy centers.

Littleton Police Chief Paul Smith said his department is not deterred, despite the case remaining unsolved. He said investigators can be patient waiting for the right opportunity to bring charges.

“Sometimes it may take six months, it may take eight months for something to break,” Smith said.

Police do have information on a potential suspect in the vandalism, but so far they do not have enough evidence to bring a charge. Smith said there is no indication at this time the June vandalism in Littleton is connected to the Jane’s Revenge movement.

“We have no information it is anything beyond local,” Smith said.

The volunteers at the Littleton center found graffiti on the side of the building that stated, “Fund Abortion, Abort God.” Pathways is an avowed Christian ministry devoted to helping pregnant women. The organization rents its space from the Elevate Church.

Smith has raised the possibility that the case could become a civil rights case depending on what evidence is eventually uncovered.

Pathways offers free ultrasounds, pregnancy tests, parenting classes, and baby supplies as well as help getting social assistance. 

U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster has made her opposition to crisis pregnancy centers clear. After the attack on Pathways, she joined a legislative effort led by Massachusetts progressive U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren attempting to criminalize the work done by those organizations.

Caleb Hunter Freestone and Amber Marie Smith-Stewart were indicted on Jan. 18 for their alleged attacks on Christian pregnancy resource centers in Florida, according to court records. The indictments against the pair state they worked with other unnamed conspirators to attack the centers that offer women alternatives to abortion and threaten the people who work there.

Jane’s Revenge attacks typically feature graffiti with the slogan, “If abortions aren’t safe, then neither are you.”

According to a report compiled by the civil rights group the Catholic League, Jane’s Revenge is behind dozens of attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers. The attacks include numerous firebombings of the centers.

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, said the government’s hesitation to investigate and prosecute Jane’s Revenge has resulted in the continuing violence. He accuses the government of failing to protect pro-life centers through inaction. The recent arrests and indictment of Freestone and Smith-Stewart do not change the government’s lackluster response to what he calls domestic terrorism.

“With the exception of the recent indictment by a federal grand jury of two persons charged with attacks on crisis pregnancy centers, little has been done to prosecute those guilty of such crimes,” Donohue said. “Indeed, the relaxed response to attacks on those in the pro-life community who have been victimized stands in stark contrast to the aggressive pursuit of the few instances of alleged violations of the law by pro-life Americans.”

When Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced he was bringing the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA) back up for another vote, Sen. Maggie Hassan quickly responded on Twitter.

“Preview: I’m voting yes.”

It was not a surprise. Hassan and her Granite State colleague Sen. Jeanne Shaheen were among the four senators who introduced the legislation last June, according to a statement posted on her website. And she already voted in February in a failed attempt to bring the bill to the Senate floor.

What might be a surprise to most New Hampshire voters, however, is what is actually in the WHPA. Among other things, the legislation Hassan helped introduce would:

• Overturn state laws that limit abortion to either the first or second trimesters. States would have to allow legal abortion up to the day of birth.  As the pro-choice organization Equal Access to Abortion, Everywhere puts it, the WHPA “establishes a statutory right for health care providers to provide, and their patients to receive, abortion care free from medically unnecessary restrictions.”
• Override nearly all state abortion laws, including parental notification laws like the one New Hampshire passed in 2011. As the WHPA states: “Access to abortion services has been obstructed across the United States in various ways, including … parental involvement laws (notification and consent).”
• Weaken “conscience exemptions” to keep healthcare workers from being forced to participate in abortion procedures that violate their religious beliefs. The bill as introduced by Hassan and Shaheen explicitly supersedes the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

“WHPA will essentially legalize abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy and undo every state law that has protected children in the womb,” according to the group Democrats for Life America.

And unlike many controversial issues where Hassan is careful not to articulate a clear, specific position, on the WHPA her stances — supporting abortion at any point during a pregnancy, without parental consent for minors, and forcing people of faith to participate in them — is in writing. And she voted with a majority of her fellow Democrats to bring the WHPA to the floor for a vote in February.

The same with Rep. Chris Pappas, who voted with every Democrat except one to pass the WHPA last fall.

While polls consistently show Americans say they oppose overturning Roe v. Wade, polls also show only a small percentage of Americans support abortions in the final months of pregnancy. Since 1996, Gallup has found more than 80 percent of Americans oppose third-trimester abortion, which would be a federal mandate in every state under the bill Hassan introduced and Pappas helped pass.

And a 2021 University of New Hampshire poll found Granite Staters support some restrictions on abortion vs. unlimited abortion on demand 58-38 percent.

During a radio interview with Jack Heath Thursday about the prospect of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, businessman and academic Vikram Mansharamani echoed the view of most Americans, based on polling data.

“If you look at the topic of abortion, you take a commonsensical non-political perspective I think, most would agree that a late-term abortion, partial-birth abortion, third-trimester abortion is not acceptable,” said Mansharamani, who is running in the GOP U.S. Senate primary. “I don’t think there’s a lot of people who think that is worth pursuing, but that is where Maggie Hassan and the Democrats are.”

The New Hampshire Democratic Party has been sending multiple press releases daily on the abortion issue since Justice Samuel Alito’s February draft of an opinion overturning Roe was leaked Monday night. They believe staking out a no-restrictions stance on abortion will help them motivate younger voters who tend not to turn out in midterm elections.

President Joe Biden, whose poll numbers are lower than any other post-war president at this point in a presidency, has strongly embraced this issue. “The idea that we’re going to make a judgment that is going to say that no one can make the judgment to choose to abort a child, based on a decision by the Supreme Court, I think goes way overboard,” he said Tuesday.

His message for the midterms: “It will fall on voters to elect pro-choice officials this November. At the federal level, we will need more pro-choice Senators and a pro-choice majority in the House to adopt legislation that codifies Roe, which I will work to pass and sign into law.”

The question is whether turning the November election into a referendum — not on general attitudes about abortion, but a specific law like the WHPA to mandate unrestricted abortion — will motivate more pro-choice liberals or pro-life conservatives?

Both Hassan and Pappas are polling underwater with New Hampshire voters. Their big problem is independents, where they have a 20-point approval deficit. Based on polling about how these voters view the difficult issue of abortion, staking out an extreme position on late-term abortion, parental consent and personal conscience may not be the best way to get those voters back.

A day after Sen. Jeanne Shaheen compared New Hampshire’s new late-abortion ban to an “authoritarian state,” leaders of Democrats for Life called her position “extreme” and her claims dishonest.

The four members of New Hampshire’s delegation held an online event in advance of Wednesday’s oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case. They decried New Hampshire’s new abortion law and warned of dire consequences if the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

“What we’re seeing in the ‘Live Free or Die’ state is unbelievable to me,” Shaheen said. “The attempt to have state control of our personal health really is what we would see in an authoritarian state. It’s not what we would expect in New Hampshire.”

“I think if you want to see a revolution, go ahead, outlaw Roe v. Wade and see what the response is,” Shaheen added.

Shaheen’s comment made national news as an indication, critics say, of pro-abortion extremism in the Democratic Party.

Democrats for Life President Monica Sparks addresses a crowd outside the DNC headquarters in Washington, D.C. on November 30, 2021.

Democrats for Life held a rally outside Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D. C. Tuesday, urging their party to move away from its extreme abortion-on-demand position and become more open to pro-life candidates.

“One in three Democrats are pro-life. That’s a lot of people. Why do you keep leaving us outside the big tent?” asked newly-elected DFL President Monica Sparks. “Shame on you, DNC!”

Asked about Shaheen’s statement, DFL Executive Director Kristen Day said she found it “interesting a U.S. Senator would completely misrepresent Roe v. Wade and the effects of overturning it. She knows better. She’s just trying to create a false narrative.”

Gov. Chris Sununu, a target of the New Hampshire congressional delegation’s criticism, was asked by NHJournal Wednesday if he’d take action to protect abortion rights if the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision. 

“I’m not really paying attention to that case,” Sununu said. “It’s not an overturn of Roe vs. Wade. It’s about viability.”

The Dobbs lawsuit concerns the new Mississippi law that restricts abortion after 15 weeks. According to Shannon Brewer, who runs the only abortion clinic in Mississippi, about 10 percent of the abortions the clinic performs take place after the fifteenth week of pregnancy.

The court is also considering the constitutionality of a Texas law that bans abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, usually around six weeks.

Vice President of Public Affairs with Planned Parenthood New Hampshire Action Fund Kayla Montgomery said abortion rights are at stake whether Sununu is paying attention or not.

“To be clear, abortion rights are at stake at the Supreme Court. Reproductive health providers, advocates, and Granite Staters are paying attention to this case because we know it will determine the future of abortion access in our country. Without constitutional protections, abortion rights will be decided on a state-by-state basis,” Montgomery said.

Overturning Roe would have no impact on New Hampshire’s late-term abortion ban.

Jason Hennessey, president of New Hampshire’s Right to Life, said Sununu’s record on abortion has been mixed, though he does approve some of the governor’s actions.

“The governor did sign the fetal life protection act, and he signed a bill to protect state taxpayer money from going to abortion clinics,” Hennessey said. “This past year he’s done some good things … We would certainly like to see him take more of a leadership role, but he’s said he’s pro-choice.”

In a statement to the Portsmouth Herald, Sununu spokesperson Brandon Pratt said, “To be clear, he did not propose this legislative amendment. But as the governor has repeatedly said, he would not veto a $13 billion state budget over a change that would bring New Hampshire in line with 43 other states, and any claim that this is a radical restriction is just partisan politics.”

Most U.S. states, as well as most modern industrialized countries, reject Shaheen’s abortion-on-demand up to the day of birth position as extreme. According to recent polls, so do most American voters.

Gallup polling has consistently found more than 80 percent of Americans oppose abortions in the third trimester. And a new Marquette University poll found 37 percent of Americans favor upholding Mississippi’s 15-week limit, while just 32 percent oppose it.

The DFL’s Day said the Democratic Party’s pro-abortion stance is hurting it among voters in middle America, and statements like Shaheen’s aren’t helping.

“She’s just creating panic, unnecessary panic,” Day said. “What we really need to focus on is providing women with real choice.”

Damien Fisher contributed to this report. 

At an Independence Day celebration, a Republican friend asked me about our starting a third party. Then he said it might not work because we disagree on one big issue…abortion.

Surprised, I asked, “You are pro-choice?”  He replied, “Yes, I don’t think we should take a right to abortion away, but I don’t think we should pay for it.” He clarified his position further by declaring his support both for parental consent and for a ban on abortion after 12 weeks. So, while he considers himself pro-choice, his clarifications show that “pro-choice” doesn’t always mean what you think.

In many ways, my friend represents the voters of New Hampshire, which is called a pro-choice state, but when you look deeper, the views on abortion are not so clear. The majority may not want abortion to be illegal, but many people support regulation.

The nuances of abortion are not stopping gubernatorial candidate Steve Marchand from taking one of the most extreme positions in the nation.

Marchand’s extremism contrasts with moderate New Hampshirites’ positions on life. His plan promotes abortion through nine months (most of Europe restricts abortion after the early second trimester), eliminates the Hyde Amendment (which prohibits federal funding of abortion), and abolishes reasonable restrictions of abortion.

Marchand advocates overturning a 2017 law that recognizes children at 20 weeks of pregnancy as eligible to be considered victims of crime. Ask any mother or father who has lost a preborn child as a result of a crime, and she or he will tell you that this law is a good thing. The law has nothing to do with abortion and everything to do with justice for grieving families.

The hostility of Marchand’s plan is frightening and will not win against a Republican incumbent who in recent polls showed a 25-point lead.

To win, Marchand should expand his base of support and recognize that abortion-on-demand is not what most women want. Most women who seek an abortion feel as if they have no choice. They are most often poor, in unhealthy relationships, and/or pressured to abort their unborn children by the fathers or other family members.

Marchand should replace his abortion-expansion plan with a woman-centered plan that whole-life voters would support.

First, he should advocate for paid maternity leave, so that a woman doesn’t have to choose between an abortion and keeping a job she needs.

Second, Marchand should support the thirty-plus pregnancy centers in New Hampshire, which provide diapers, cribs, strollers, clothing, and other necessities for mothers, free of charge.

Third, Marchand should promote perinatal hospice, which supports mothers and families who receive a diagnosis that the child in utero has a life-threatening disease and will likely not survive.

It matters that New Hampshire, which carries symbolic weight when it comes to picking the leader of the country, is seeing a frightening hostility to life in its gubernatorial race.

New Hampshire prides itself for being “first in the nation.” But will it lead the way for life or for hostility?

While House leadership said that bills restricting abortion rights would not be a priority for the Republican majority, there are still some bills before the New Hampshire Legislature tackling the contentious issue.

After the November election, House Speaker Shawn Jasper outlined his top priorities for the 2017 legislative session, which included concealed carry and right to work, but not any abortion bills.

However, that didn’t stop several state representatives from putting them forward. With a Republican-controlled State House, some bills that seek to restrict abortion rights could quietly make it far in the legislative process. While pro-life and pro-choice groups are paying attention to the issue, most eyes will be on the budget, right-to-work legislation, or other bills dealing with election laws.

Rep. Keith Murphy, R-Bedford, is hopeful his bill, which would ban abortions after “viability,” passes the House. He introduced a similar version of the bill last year, when it was deemed “ought to pass” in the House Judiciary Committee, but failed by three votes in a House session.

Murphy blamed the defeat on the fact that it was “the end of a long day and a lot of people already left.” He also thought some of the representatives did not fully understand the bill.

“I have vowed this year to be different,” he told NH Journal.

House Bill 578 would prohibit any person from performing or inducing an abortion on a woman when it has been determined that the age of the “unborn child” is 21 weeks or older, unless there is a medical emergency in order to save the woman’s life or stop physical harm. The bill also sets penalties for doctors who perform abortions in violation of the law.

New Hampshire is one of eight states that does not place a specific restriction on abortions at a certain point in pregnancy, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization focused on sexual and reproductive health.

“New Hampshire tends to be a fairly moderate state on the question of abortion,” Murphy said. “I think this bill has an excellent chance [of passing] because it protects children who are viable, who will live if they are removed from the womb. There is no reason to kill these children because they will survive.”

Kayla Montgomery, director of advocacy and organizing for Planned Parenthood NH Action Fund, said the bill would criminalize doctors and make “it impossible for women who face complex pregnancy complications or severe fetal abnormalities to access abortion as currently provided in New Hampshire.”

“Equally as problematic, the bill requires an intrusive data collection system which would create a registry of women who obtain abortions and doctors who provide them and store this information at the Board of Medicine and the Department of Health and Human Services,” she told NH Journal.

While Murphy understands that his legislation might not be a priority for the House leadership, he said he has spoken to House Majority Leader Dick Hinch about the bill and “Speaker Jasper has indicated in general that he will go where the House takes him.”

“I don’t think he is dictating the outcome of the bill,” he said. “If the House passes it, it will be supported.”

If enough Republicans rally behind the bill, it could make it to Gov. Chris Sununu’s desk, and Murphy said he is optimistic that the Republican governor would sign it.

Sununu describes himself as a pro-choice Republican and said he stands by his vote to approve of state funding for Planned Parenthood last year. But he also said he opposes late-term abortions. He has not been specific about what that means.

“We can generally say third trimester, but some say 20 weeks,” he told the New Hampshire Union Leader in October. “I think we can look at those options, but I am not going to put a timeline on it now.”

Planned Parenthood, though, is expecting Sununu to protect women’s health.

“We will be watching the budget process closely to ensure that women’s health programs are protected and fully funded,” Montgomery said. “Gov. Sununu campaigned as someone who supports abortion rights and pledged to stand up to his party to protect women’s health, and that’s what we are expecting of him. New Hampshire has a long bipartisan tradition of respecting individual privacy. Support for access to safe, legal abortion in New Hampshire is among the strongest in the country. Defeating attacks has always been accomplished by bipartisan efforts, and we expect no different this year.”

There are two near-identical bills in the House and Senate that would allow prosecution of a person, such as an impaired driver or abusive domestic partner, whose actions cause a woman to lose a pregnancy that she has chosen to carry. It does not apply to abortion or to any act performed with the mother’s consent.

Senate Bill 66 specifies a “viable” fetus, which is a “developing human” that has basic human qualities. House Bill 156 is just a fetus, which is defined as after the eighth week of a pregnancy until birth.

The House Bill is known as Griffin’s Law, which has been introduced in the Legislature before by former Rep. Leon Rideout, R-Lancaster, whose daughter lost her baby in 2013 after another driver ran a stop sign and crashed into her. His daughter suffered serious injuries and despite an emergency C section to keep the child alive, he succumbed to injuries from the crash.

Rep. Jeanine Notter, R-Merrimack, is the prime sponsor of Griffin’s Law in the current legislative session. But the future of the bill remains unclear. It has failed in the Legislature before, so it will remain to be seen if it has more widespread support this time. The House bill will hear public testimony in the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee on Tuesday.

Montgomery said the House and Senate bills do not have a “direct impact on the health services that Planned Parenthood of Northern New England provides.”

“We do share concerns that have been raised regarding implications of recognizing fetal rights prior to viability,” she said. “There are examples of similar bills in other states which have led to the prosecution of women for their own behavior during pregnancy.”

Montgomery said Planned Parenthood would also be watching House Bill 589, which would repeal the “buffer zone law,” which was passed in 2014, allowing for a 25-foot zone outside abortion facilities where no one would be allowed to protest or impede anyone from entering the facility.

“Now, more than ever, health centers need the flexibility to adapt buffer zones if they feel the privacy and safety of patients are at risk,” Montgomery said. “Undoing this law would be a step backwards and removes an important tool from the toolkit.”

Sununu has indicated during the campaign that he would support repealing the law.

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