Sununu Wavering on 24-Week Abortion Ban

On June 25, Governor Sununu signed into law the state budget, HB 2 – which included the Fetal Life Protection Act. This historic legislation makes New Hampshire the first state in the country to go from allowing abortion up to birth to prohibiting late-term abortion.

As soon as Sununu signed this bill, New Hampshire’s pro-abortion lobby spent an estimated one hundred thousand dollars on a multi-front advertising campaign individually targeting the Governor. Unfortunately, relatively few pro-life Granite Staters contacted the Governor to thank and encourage him for taking this important step in the right direction.

Sununu has been on record since at least 2016 as saying he would support a late-term abortion ban. But now that he’s facing sustained pressure from the abortion lobby, Sununu is wavering, telling the Union Leader he is “very open to more discussions” on potentially gutting the law.

Sununu focused on the Act’s ultrasound requirement, telling the Union Leader “I don’t like these stipulations that the Legislature put in, such as the ultrasound.”

The Act requires ultrasounds because it prohibits abortion at a specific gestational age: 24 weeks. This means that, when a child is somewhere around 24 weeks, there must be a clear determination of the child’s age.

As Sununu and the abortion lobby are well aware, removing the ultrasound requirement from the law would make the Act non-functional and meaningless.

If the Governor does not like the idea of banning abortion at a fixed number of weeks, the alternative would’ve been to prohibit abortion “at viability.” But when past New Hampshire abortion bills contained a “viability” standard, they were strenuously opposed by abortionists on the grounds that viability is too subjective. They argued that such a law would cruelly penalize doctors without providing any clear rule for them to follow.   

Rest assured that Governor Sununu would be facing exactly the same sustained, hysterical accusations of cruelty from the left no matter what the specific abortion law said. The issue is not the mechanics of the law, but Democrats’ inhuman, ultra-partisan commitment to pro-abortion absolutism.

Why is the pressure on Sununu so one-sided? The sad fact is that pro-abortion Granite Staters greatly outperform the pro-life community in both personal enthusiasm and financial resources.

Yet the numbers show that a silent majority is more closely aligned with us. A plurality of Granite Staters support the 24-week abortion ban, including over half of independents and 16% of Democrats. Additionally, 58% of Granite Staters believe abortion should be illegal at some point prior to birth—in contrast to every Democratic state senator and almost all Democratic state representatives.  

Although Cornerstone is committed to the fight for life, we cannot run as many advertisements as the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and Emily’s List. We need to leverage our greatest advantage—our numbers—by reminding the Governor of who is in the majority. We need people like you to speak up in defense of “the least of these.”

Call, write, or fax the Governor today and tell him that signing the Fetal Life Protection Act into law was the right choice. Tell him to keep his word and stand firmly by the 24-week abortion ban.

For details on the Fetal Life Protection Act, see our FAQ on the new law. Or see a recent op-ed from Rep. Beth Folsom, the prime sponsor of the Act.

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