First Look: Maggie Hassan

When the New Hampshire House leadership took a cue from the Blunt Amendment and decided to author a bill that would allow employers to deny contraception coverage , former Senate Majority Leader and now gubernatorial candidate Maggie Hassan had something to say about it.

In a press conference, Maggie took a stand: “Women should have freedom to make their own health-care decisions. The legislature wants to give that power to employers. We should not go back to the days where women were paying up to $1,000 more a year out-of-pocket for basic health care. This unbelievable attempt to turn back the clock on women’s health care must be stopped.”,/p>

Her Republican opponents, however, toed the line. Both Ovide Lamontagne and Kevin Smith accused Maggie of somehow “politicizing” this issue – which conveniently ignores the fact that a New Hampshire law requiring health insurance plans to cover contraception has been on the books for 12 years.

Many of the key battles in the War on Women are being fought in our state houses , which is why it’s more urgent than ever to elect pro-choice, Democratic women like Maggie Hassan as governor – officials who’ll stand up to the rising tide of anti-woman policies.

Sadly, we have precious few opportunities in 2012 to help get Democratic women into governor’s mansions . And we if don’t do everything possible to support EMILY’s List candidates Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire and Kathleen Falk in Wisconsin, we could have no Democratic women governors at all.

We’d better get to work.