Janet Perkins-Howland: Supporting Luz Bay for Executive Council District 1

To The Daily Sun,

I have practiced obstetrics and gynecology in New Hampshire for 30 years. In that time I have watched rural hospitals close their labor and delivery units one by one. Women in our northern and rural communities are left driving an hour or more, sometimes in labor and sometimes in snow, to reach care. That is why I am supporting Luz Bay for Executive Council District 1.

The executive council approves the contracts that keep our public health system running, and incumbent District 1 Councilor Joe Kenney's record on those contracts worries me as a physician. In May 2025, he voted against a fully federally funded study of women's health in New Hampshire. The study would have cost state taxpayers nothing, and he opposed it at the very moment hospitals were cutting maternity services. In September 2021, he voted to reject family planning contracts that paid for cancer screenings, birth control, and STI testing for low-income Granite Staters.

These votes are not abstractions. Cervical cancer found through screening is treatable, and cervical cancer found late kills. Women who can plan their pregnancies are healthier, and so are their children.

I have the pleasure of knowing Luz Bay personally, and I know she will be and advocate for women and families in our state. Luz understands that in a rural district, a rejected contract or a closed clinic can be the difference between care close to home and no care at all. I urge voters to elect her in November.

Janet Perkins-Howland

Alton