Vance and Trump Promise to Defund Planned Parenthood. So Did Kelly Ayotte.

Vance and Trump Promise to Defund Planned Parenthood. So Did Kelly Ayotte. 

Over the weekend, JD Vance reaffirmed Donald Trump’s plan to defund Planned Parenthood if he is elected this November, taking a page out of Kelly Ayotte’s playbook. Despite losing her reelection in 2016 in part because of her extreme anti-abortion record, Ayotte is back with a renewed promise to defund access to reproductive health care for New Hampshire women.

 After voting to defund Planned Parenthood four times in the U.S. Senate, Ayotte has pledged in her campaign for governor that she “would not renew funding to Planned Parenthood,” calling it a “political organization,” claiming it is “the largest provider of abortions in the country.”

Planned Parenthood is one of the largest providers of reproductive health care in New Hampshire, serving a majority of low-income patients. Earlier this year, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England warned that a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall due to the lack of state assistance is threatening critical health care services for thousands of women, and Ayotte in the corner office would only further threaten the organization’s ability to serve its patients.

Ayotte’s attacks on Planned Parenthood are just one part of her consistent and well-documented anti-abortion record: in the U.S. Senate, Ayotte also voted for a national abortion ban, and called for the overturning of Roe v. Wade. She voted for amendments that would have allowed insurance companies and employers to deny employees coverage of care such as birth control and IVF treatment. After losing in 2016, Ayotte was hand-picked by the Trump administration to serve as the “sherpa” for then-Supreme Court Justice nominee Neil Gorsuch, who, under Ayotte’s guidance, refused to take a position on Roe. Gorsuch became the first justice to sign on to the majority opinion in Dobbs, ruling to end the constitutional right to abortion just “10 minutes after [the decision] hit his desk.

“JD Vance and Donald Trump are taking cues from Kelly Ayotte’s losing playbook: attacking reproductive freedom and threatening to gut funding for potentially lifesaving health care that women and families rely on,” said DGA States Press Secretary Emma O’Brien. “Kelly Ayotte, Donald Trump, and JD Vance have all been clear: if given the opportunity, they will defund Planned Parenthood and rip away access to essential health care for millions of women. Granite Staters can’t trust Kelly Ayotte to defend or protect their reproductive freedom.”

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