How New Hampshire Republicans Should “Engage” on Abortion in 2024

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How New Hampshire Republicans Should “Engage” on Abortion in 2024

 Chuck Morse on the most significant abortion ban in New Hampshire’s history: “I made that happen.”

After voters across the country rejected Republicans’ extreme attacks on reproductive freedom last year, the Republican Governors Association said it plans to “encourage GOP candidates to engage on this issue” in 2024.

All this week, the Democratic Governors Association is offering a preview of what it could look like if Republican gubernatorial candidates heed this advice and lean into their extreme and deeply unpopular efforts to restrict abortion in even the most dire circumstances.

Today, we look to New Hampshire, where a hearing this afternoon on a proposed bill to ban abortion without exceptions for rape or incest after just fifteen days serves as the latest reminder of the stakes of this year’s governor’s race.

In what will certainly be good news to the RGA, both Chuck Morse and Kelly Ayotte have plenty of material to use today’s hearing as a jumping-off point to talk about their own extreme and dangerous track records of attacking reproductive freedom. As Senate President, Morse was the architect of the state’s current abortion ban, which calls for civil and criminal penalties for doctors and health care professionals, including “up to seven years in prison and fines up to $100,000,” and voted against adding exceptions for rape and incest to the bill. Meanwhile, Ayotte — whose political ally is responsible for this dangerous new proposal — was calling for Roe vs. Wade to be overturned at least as far back as 2010, and used her only term in the U.S. Senate to lead the charge for a national abortion ban.

Morse and Ayotte should apply the RGA’s guidance more broadly, though, as both candidates have also voted repeatedly to defund Planned Parenthood — and promised to do the same as governor — and worked to make it harder and more expensive for women to fill a birth control prescription. After all, what do voters in the “Live Free or Die” state love more than politicians trying to take away their freedom to make their own health care decisions?

“Today’s hearing offers Chuck Morse and Kelly Ayotte a sterling opportunity to ‘engage’ voters on their extreme vision for a New Hampshire where women are denied the right to make their own health care decisions,” said DGA Deputy Communications Director Izzi Levy. “We sincerely hope that both candidates follow the RGA’s advice and take every chance they get over the next ten months to remind Granite Staters that freedom is on the ballot in November.”

 

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