Budgets are the ultimate test of priorities and values. The Republican-led legislature and Gov. Chris Sununu made their priorities known loud and clear when they passed an anti-family and anti-woman budget.
The Republican budget prioritizes large, out-of-state corporations, gives away millions of dollars to the wealthiest Granite Staters, provides mere scraps to working families and those disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, and leaves local communities and property taxpayers left holding the bag.
As a working mother and as a physician, we are particularly outraged by the extreme policies shoe-horned into this budget. After Granite State women powered our state through the pandemic, providing more than two-thirds of the essential work and shouldering the majority of the economic and family hardships, the Republican majority and Gov. Sununu showed their gratitude this session by dismantling women’s most fundamental rights and failing to support working families.
To begin with, HB 2 imposes a government-forced ultrasound requirement on all New Hampshire women who seek an abortion in our state, at any stage of pregnancy, even women who might otherwise terminate a pregnancy with oral abortion medication which is available within the first 11 weeks of pregnancy. This new law is contrary to medical practice and designed to make abortion itself more intrusive, more medically complex, more expensive and more burdensome.
This incredible and outrageous overreach by the government will present not only a physical bodily invasion, but also for many women it will present a significant financial and logistical burden. For some women who might have previously been able to have a medication abortion through telehealth and a “clothes-on” visit to the health center for prescription administration, they will now have to disrobe and be subjected to a medically unnecessary transvaginal ultrasound.
HB 2 also imposes a strict restriction on abortion in New Hampshire after 24 weeks with no exceptions for rape, incest or the health of the fetus. We heard testimony from doctors across the state that there are no providers currently performing so-called elective abortions after 24 weeks in New Hampshire. Even termination of pregnancy for medical reasons is exceptionally rare and only performed after extensive consultation between the mother and specialists in obstetrics, maternal-fetal medicine and neonatology. HB 2 now criminalizes that medical intervention and goes as far as to subject the mother to a potential civil lawsuit from the father.
The extreme Republican abortion ban, fully embraced and signed into law by Gov. Sununu, is a direct attack on women’s reproductive health and freedom. It will also align New Hampshire with the national effort to take down Roe v. Wade, a threat that is very real with a case now pending at the U.S. Supreme Court. This Republican abortion ban is not only inconsistent with Roe but directly at odds with the more than 70% of New Hampshire residents who support the abortion rights established by that important precedent.
This breathtaking invasion of privacy, the interjection of the state into the exam room, criminalization of a medical procedure, and placement in statute a requirement for an unnecessary and invasive diagnostic test represents an unprecedented overreach never before seen in our Live Free or Die state. Our state has a long tradition of standing up for individual freedom from unwarranted state government intrusion, but Republicans have now abandoned that fundamental New Hampshire principle.
While perhaps the most visible, HB 2 is only one part of the Republican majority’s assault on women this session. Senate Republicans also rejected an amendment to HB 1 which would have maintained the previous level of funding provided for employment-related child care services. This funding would have directly benefited our most at-risk children whose families are in need of assistance and need to get back to work.
We know that safe, affordable child care is critical in getting women back to work and central to rebuilding and sustaining our economy, but Republicans disagreed. In the House, Republicans also chose to retain two Senate bills that would have provided accommodations for pregnancy and nursing mothers, the latter of which was the result of years of bipartisan work and strong support from numerous stakeholders, including the business community. Yet House Republicans chose to delay these protections for working mothers.
These short-sighted, anti-woman measures need to be recognized for what they are – a concerted and deliberate effort by the Republican majority to strip New Hampshire women of their right to make their own thoughtful healthcare choices, while also failing to provide basic protections that would recognize their right to continue to participate in the workforce whether they are pregnant or nursing. This systemic and unrelenting misogyny is damaging to our economy and detrimental to the future of the Granite State. Granite State women deserve better.
(Becky Whitley and Tom Sherman are NH state senators.)