The Strafford County Superior Court in New Hampshire has ruled against Planned Parenthood’s attempt to keep hidden details pertaining to the state’s licensing of the abortion giant to dispense the RU-486 abortion drug.
The state’s Planned Parenthood affiliate is accused of dispensing the abortion drug for use in a way that violates the federal Food and Drug Administration’s safety protocols. Both Planned Parenthood and state health officials have acknowledged that they reacted to New Hampshire Right to Life’s legal requests to reveal the relevant licensing documentation by working together to determine which information to reveal and which to withhold.
In its decision, the court found that “[i]n his May 2015 Order, Judge Mangones determined that the public interest outweighs the commercial interest at stake on this precise issue, and DHHS did not challenge that ruling. Accordingly, it should have produced the protocols to NHRTL without redactions in the first instance, and two months from when this litigation was initiated.”
Because the redactions violated New Hampshire’s right to know law, forcing New Hampshire Right to Life to go to court to procure the rest of the information to which they were already legally entitled, the court also ruled that the state must pay NHRTL’s legal fees.
“The people of New Hampshire do not need permission from Planned Parenthood to see records that are theirs to see,” said Michael Tierny, a private attorney allied with Alliance Defending Freedom. “They deserve to know if government officials are allowing Planned Parenthood – already the subject of numerous scandals and investigations – to get away with skirting the law yet again.”
