Before Mike Pence’s visit to New Hampshire to fund raise with Gov. Chris Sununu, the vice president shared his belief that legal protections for abortion would end in his lifetime. His foreboding claim is, unfortunately, largely indicative of a growing resurgence of the anti-choice movement that’s taken place since President Donald Trump’s election. Even worse, it’s become clear that the New Hampshire Republican Party is not immune. In the past year and a half, Gov. Sununu and his party seem to have willingly forgotten our state’s “Live Free or Die” creed in their mad dash to support or silently accept restrictive abortion legislation.
Throughout his career, Pence has endorsed and implemented legislation that directly assaults the rights of women and members of the LGBTQIA community. Under his leadership, Indiana enacted dangerous and unconstitutional laws that limited the rights of people who were different than he. These extreme views are out of step with those of Granite State voters, and yet Gov. Sununu welcomed him with open arms in order to take advantage of his fundraising potential.
Gov. Sununu’s eagerness to receive money from someone as radically conservative as Pence shows that his support of women’s health care extends only so far as he can continue receiving donations from anti-choice figureheads.
But the problem goes beyond Sununu’s willingness to trade on women’s access to health care. This year alone, New Hampshire Republicans introduced six bills that sought to limit a woman’s right to access abortion care. And while these bills were defeated thanks to a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans, the threat is still very real.
What Pence, Sununu and many New Hampshire Republicans either don’t know or don’t care to acknowledge is that access to safe and affordable abortion is a crucial component of women’s health care. A woman’s ability to decide whether and when to bear a child is fundamental to her autonomy. It is essential for clinics to offer the full range of reproductive health care, including family planning, birth control, prenatal care and access to safe, legal abortion. What’s more, the legislation Republicans introduced has been proven not to work. Study after study has shown that when access to abortion is restricted, the abortion rate does not go down. In fact, the rate of dangerous and life-threatening abortions increases.
Access to this procedure is also vital for a woman’s economic freedom. The ability to choose when or if to have a child is a personal choice that gives women control over their careers and professional development. When our government refuses to give women the right to control their bodies, they are effectively enforcing a society that keeps women from achieving their potential.
It’s a travesty that we live in a world where the vice president and New Hampshire Republicans feel comfortable introducing these restrictive bills and people like Chris Sununu feel comfortable profiting off their record.
Luckily, in November we have the ability to take back control. It is vital that anyone who cares about women’s health gets out and works over the coming months to remove from office anyone who has participated in, or been complicit in, these attacks on women’s rights. It’s time for all of us to get to work and fight for what we know is right.
(Terie Norelli is a former speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives. She lives in Portsmouth.)