New Hampshire Legislators Defeat Bill Stopping Planned Parenthood Funding 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
January 31, 2007
Concord, NH (LifeNews.com) — A New Hampshire state legislative committee defeated a bill that would prevent the state from entering into contracts with Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion business. The bill would have prohibited the Department of Health and Human Service from doing business with any abortion facility.
The proposal targeted Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, which has a state contract for nearly $1 million to pay for family planning services.
However, members of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee voted unanimously to rejct the measure despite testimony from pro-life groups in favor of it.
"The position of the committee was that these dollars that go to Planned Parenthood actually prevent abortion," Sen. Martha Fuller Clark, a Democrat from Portsmouth, told the Concord Monitor.
Planned Parenthood receives most of the funds in the contract from the federal government but pro-life advocates say the state shouldn’t kick in its portion because the group is an abortion business.
"I don’t want my money to kill babies," Darlene Pawlik, president of New Hampshire Right to Life, told the panel.
The Monitor reported that other speakers said the state shouldn’t fund the group because it encourages behavior that leads to higher pregnancies, which often result in abortions.
In December, a Planned Parenthood watchdog group says it closed more centers last year and more than 100 in the last 11 years. According to a study by STOPP Planned Parenthood, the number of Planned Parenthood facilities is at its lowest point in 20 years.
Planned Parenthood currently runs 817 "health clinics," some of which do abortions and some of which provide legitimate health care services to women that help the abortion business maintain a better public image.
That’s the lowest number since 1987, when Planned Parenthood had 816 facilities and is lower than in 1995 when it had a high of 938 facilities across the nation.
Of the facilities, 172 do surgical abortions while 60 do abortions by giving women the dangerous abortion drug mifepristone, or RU 486.
In October, Planned Parenthood released a new memo revealing its upcoming national strategy. The memo focuses mostly on the efforts of pro-life advocates to counter the abortion business and it laments the amount of time Planned Parenthood devotes to responding.
