Meet an anti-abortion rights Senate candidate: Don Bolduc

Don Bolduc, the Republican nominee for the Senate seat held by incumbent New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan, has made clear that he is completely opposed to any rights to abortion, according to a review of interviews, statements, and public appearances conducted by the American Independent Foundation.

Hassan, who has been endorsed by NARAL Pro-Choice America, is a Senate co-sponsor of the Women’s Health Protection Act, described as a bill “To protect a person’s ability to determine whether to continue or end a pregnancy, and to protect a health care provider’s ability to provide abortion services.”

“The Supreme Court has taken away a woman’s most fundamental freedom: control over her own body,” Hassan said in a campaign ad released in June after the Supreme Court issued its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that struck down Roe v. Wade‘s affirmation of a constitutional right to abortion. “This decision catapults us backwards. … We will not be intimidated. I will fight and never back down.”

While Bolduc’s campaign website does not mention abortion, he has repeated many times that he is “unapologetically pro-life.”

Supports anti-abortion policies out of step with the views of most voters in New Hampshire

New Hampshire law prohibits abortion at 24 weeks from conception, with exceptions in cases in which a patient’s life is endangered or in which the fetus has been diagnosed with “abnormalities incompatible with life.” There are no exceptions in cases of rape or incest.

A survey of New Hampshire adults conducted in 2014 by the Pew Research Center found that 66% believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases and 29% believe it should not be legal in most or all cases.

Bolduc acknowledged that fact during a meeting in December 2019 with the Republican Committee of Salem, New Hampshire, during a run for Senate in the 2020 election, but repeated that he believes life starts at conception. He told the audience that he disagrees with the state’s Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, a self-proclaimed “pro-choice” politician.

In July 2021, Bolduc insisted that abortion takes a life and that “more people are killed by abortion than by guns,” denying that the procedure is health care.

Favors defunding Planned Parenthood and calls abortion a “criminal” act

Bolduc says that Planned Parenthood should be defunded. He told an interviewer in July 2019:

I like what … Gov. Sununu has put in place … and that is the health centers that we have, the 10 health centers in the 51 locations. I am all for women’s health and promoting women’s health. That’s huge, right? But I’m not for spending one – one – taxpayer dollar on abortion, not one. And, so I would, you know, I just oppose that, that’s not right, and that’s what Planned Parenthood has turned into. It’s not advocating women’s health. It’s advocating abortions and it’s doing one of the most criminal, I think, types of abortions, which is, you know, partial abortion, which is inhumane by anybody’s standard.

Bolduc was referring to abortions conducted later in a pregnancy, falsely called “partial-birth abortions” by abortion-rights opponents, a relatively rare procedure banned by a federal law that was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2007.

Supported overturning of Roe v. Wade, denies that abortion is health care

Bolduc supported the Supreme Court’s ruling on June 24 in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning the constitutional right to abortion. The day the ruling was issued, Bolduc said during an appearance, “Why don’t we just rejoice that one right now, Roe v. Wade?”

In a primary debate a few days later, he called the ruling “a necessary constitutional correction. It goes back to the states. That’s great.”

During a campaign event earlier last week, Bolduc called the disposal of embryos for in vitro fertilization “a disgusting practice” that is in “the same ballpark” as obtaining abortion care, according to an audio recording obtained by Vanity Fair.

At the same event, Bolduc also said that while he has “said no, no on an abortion ban at the federal level,” he is “not going to say no” to such a proposal. Still, he claimed Hassan “needs to get on board with the Supreme Court decision” to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.