Politico Playbook | Roe Fallout

By Lisa Kashinsky
Story Originally Appeared in Politico Playbook

REGIONAL REACH — Reproductive Equity Now is expanding into New Hampshire and Connecticut as the abortion-rights advocacy group aims to turn New England into a bastion for those seeking reproductive care.

“We really believe that state-by-state work to build power is how we win in a post-Dobbs world,” REN Executive Director Rebecca Hart Holder told Playbook. The group plans to focus on education and legislative advocacy in all three states (Massachusetts included).

The expansion comes at a pivotal political moment in New Hampshire, where abortion is quickly becoming one of the biggest issues in the state's open gubernatorial race. Democrats are hammering Republican contenders for supporting the state's near-total ban on abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy and, in Kelly Ayotte’s case, for supporting a near-blanket 20-week ban on abortions as a U.S. senator.

Hart Holder said Ayotte "poses an existential threat" to reproductive care in New Hampshire and that her group plans to educate voters there on abortion rights and where candidates stand on them.

Ayotte campaign spokesperson John Corbett said the “majority of Granite Staters agree” with the state’s current abortion law and that the former U.S. senator “won’t change it.”