‘You can trust them:’ NH woman shares her experience getting care from Planned Parenthood

In 2014, when Leah Quimby moved to Keene from Montréal after graduating from college, she didn’t immediately have a job and health insurance. 

Suffering with painful menstrual cycles, the now-Henniker resident was able to access birth control that helped alleviate her pain—thanks to Planned Parenthood of Northern New England (PPNNE), which has 15 clinics across Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont—including one in Keene. 

Ten years later, Quimby still relies on Planned Parenthood for regular preventive check ups, simply because she trusts the organization. 

“They’re kind of a first line of health care for so many individuals, especially women,” said Quimby, who has even become a volunteer for the organization. “And I think there’s a lot of other places that may tell you you could go there, but you can’t necessarily trust that (those other organizations) are giving you actual medical information. Planned Parenthood you can trust.”

Quimby said people may think that just because Planned Parenthood offers free or low-cost health care to anyone who comes through its doors, it’s a clinic for people without insurance. But even when Quimby became insured, she still went to PPNNE to confirm her pregnancy for  her now 6-year-old. 

“Later on when I had a new job with their insurance, I got pregnant,” she said. “And I was not certain I was pregnant, but it was Planned Parenthood that I trusted to go to find out for sure. And that’s who I trusted to give me all of the information I needed, because really I had no idea what to do because I had not been going anywhere else.”

 New Hampshire GOP repeatedly tries to defund PPNNE 

Quimby believes that without the care she received from PPNNE over the years, her health outcomes could have been very different.

“Maybe I wouldn’t have been able to lead my life the way I wanted,” she said. “And now I have a healthy 6-year-old daughter. And really, Planned Parenthood got me through that time in so many ways, my younger years as an adult. I don’t think I could have been as healthy or afforded to get (care) anywhere else.”

But such equitable access to wellness and preventive care for women is at threat in New Hampshire, where the Republican-controlled executive council has repeatedly tried to defund family planning contracts for PPNNE. The five-member council—made up of four Republicans and one Democrat—has rejected family planning contracts for PPNNE and two other health centers five times in the last three years. 

The consequence? PPNNE ended the most recent fiscal year with a $5 million deficit, and is projecting a budget deficit of almost $8.6 million over the next three years. 

“It was a surprise the first time because it’s shocking that anyone would choose to put their own personal beliefs over an entire public health network in New Hampshire,” Kayla Montgomery, vice president of public affairs at PPNNE told The Granite Post. “It’s a fragile network, and the three providers that were defunded make up 80% of the programs.”

Republicans on the council declined to fund the contracts on grounds that, in addition to a wide variety of health care services, the providers offer abortions. That’s despite the fact that the funding in question doesn’t go toward funding abortions—it’s allocated towards providing basic essential care to low-income individuals at a free or discounted rate in the state. Over the past three years, New Hampshire’s Planned Parenthood health clinics have served 11,223 patients for 15,717 visits. 

In order to ensure their patients aren’t impacted, organization officials plan to use their limited cash reserves to offset the continued shortfall for now. But those reserves are dwindling.

What could this do to health care for New Hampshire’s women?

Montgomery warns that the budget shortfall could have catastrophic consequences. 

“We’re talking about some really catastrophic health care outcomes for our region, which of course includes things like worsening pregnancy outcomes or increased rates of unintended pregnancy, higher rates of sexually transmitted infections, HIV, increased rates of cervical and breast cancer,” she said. 

Karen Liot Hill, a Democratic candidate for the executive council from district 2—which includes parts of Grafton, Merrimack, Sullivan, and Cheshire counties—said keeping family planning services and reproductive rights are at the center of this election. 

On her campaign trail, Liot Hill—a staunch advocate for reproductive freedom—has been sharing the story of her mother, Lynn, who died of cervical cancer when she was 6 years old.

“That’s the kind of cancer that’s typically discovered in routine reproductive health care,” she said. “The kind of health care that Republicans on the executive council have been voting to defund repeatedly.”

A mother of two herself, Liot Hill also believes that keeping Planned Parenthood sufficiently funded is necessary to keep gender-affirming care accessible. Studies show that having such care available reduces mental health challenges and the suicide rate for young people who are trans or questioning their gender identity. 

Liot Hill said the Republican attack on PPNNE is a direct attack on New Hampshire’s trans community that seeks much-needed care at affordable rates and in non-judgemental spaces.

Montgomery shared that while Planned Parenthood has a set of reliable donors who would continue to step up, it is difficult to run a health care organization on philanthropy alone. 

“We are of course asking donors to step up and continue because they have always been incredible,” Montgomery said. “We have some of the most incredible supporters here in our region, but we need lawmakers to act, too.”

Granite Staters can have an impact on the priorities local and state leaders set by voting in the primary election on Sept. 10.

Liot Hill will be on the ballot, alongside several candidates for governor, state representatives and state senators, and county representatives. You can check your registration status and view a sample ballot on the Secretary of State’s website. 

Track LGBTQ+-friendly candidates and policies here, here, and here. More endorsements will be announced over the next several weeks.