New Hampshire Bulletin | How you can invest in compassionate reproductive health care in New Hampshire
By Christina Warriner, Sandi Denoncour, and Jinelle Hobson
Originally Published in the New Hampshire Bulletin
Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, abortion providers have faced no shortage of uphill battles. Abortion remains legal up to 24 weeks in New Hampshire, but doctors can still be criminalized for providing life-saving care to patients. Far-right legislators continue to attempt to restrict and ban access to care all together, and the New Hampshire Executive Council repeatedly denies reproductive and sexual health clinics funding to provide family planning services.
Despite these challenges, our independent community clinics and their providers have never wavered. Each day, New Hampshire providers, clinic volunteers, and staff continue to show up to provide our communities with the compassionate care they want and need.
In the post-Roe era, the need for inclusive, full spectrum reproductive health services and abortion care has only risen. New Hampshire’s clinics, the Lovering Health Center of Greenland and Equality Health Center of Concord, not only support our local community, but also see patients who can’t access care legally in their home state.
From 2022 to 2023, Lovering of Greenland not only saw a 59 percent increase in patients, but saw people seeking care from 10 different states across the U.S., while the Equality Health Center provided services across 14 different states. The centers also provide more than abortion care, offering reproductive health services such as STD/STI testing and treatment, birth control, cancer screenings, and gender-affirming care.
Strains on our health care infrastructure, a lack of funding for basic family planning services, and continued political attacks on reproductive and gender-affirming care make this job all the more difficult.
March 10 is Abortion Provider Appreciation Day, and we encourage you to show up for your local reproductive health care providers the same way they show up for our communities each and every day. Here’s how you can do that.
Help build community support and power around our sexual and reproductive health clinics. Get involved with organizations like Reproductive Equity Now, which are working on the ground to build a groundswell of support for New Hampshire’s independent providers. Join Repro Equity Now to elect executive councilors and legislators who will stand up for our clinics and the care they provide, and stand with the organization at the State House to combat political attacks on our providers and reproductive freedom.
Tell your neighbors, your co-workers, and your friends about the work that our clinics do to provide not only abortion care, but community-based care. When our clinics have community support, they are more resilient to political attacks, and patients know they have the support and love of their neighbors as they navigate their individual reproductive health journeys.
And finally, you can provide financial support. Your investment in New Hampshire clinics is an investment in the future of reproductive equity in the Granite State.
