Somerset County · ~69,862 residents
69,862
Residents
17
Legislative district
3
Legislators
1
Abortion facility
Franklin Township sits in Somerset County, and its largest neighbourhood is called Somerset — which is why the Planned Parenthood facility here is addressed to "Somerset, NJ" while carrying the name "Franklin Township Center". There are four Franklin Townships in New Jersey. This is the one in Somerset County.
Somerset held more enslaved people than any county in the state except Bergen. The 1800 census counted 1,863 enslaved residents here — 14.5% of everyone living in the county. From 1737 until 1800 the densest slaveholding in New Jersey was consistently in Bergen, Monmouth and Somerset. The state then took until 1865 to finish letting go, and only after the Legislature had voted the Thirteenth Amendment down once.
Somerset County held 1,863 enslaved people in 1800 — 14.5% of its population, the second-highest concentration in New Jersey. From 1737 until 1800 the densest slaveholding in the state was consistently in Bergen, Monmouth and Somerset.
Source: 1800 federal census, as compiled by the New Jersey Slavery Records project
Abortion reporting to the CDC is voluntary, and New Jersey is one of four jurisdictions that declines. Its own Department of Health publishes no count of induced terminations, by county or statewide. The state that wrote abortion access into its statutes does not record how often it happens.
There is no figure for Franklin, or for Somerset County, because there is no figure for anywhere in New Jersey. The best available independent estimate is 61,200 abortions provided by clinicians statewide in 2025.
Sources: CDC, Abortion Surveillance — United States, 2022 (MMWR Surveillance Summaries) · Guttmacher Institute, Monthly Abortion Provision Study
One abortion facility operates in Franklin Township — the Planned Parenthood Franklin Township Center on Route 27, addressed to Somerset:
Planned Parenthood — Franklin Township Center
1323 Route 27, Somerset, NJ 08873
(833) 377-8474
Every abortion facility in New Jersey →
Franklin Township is in Legislative District 17, which it shares with New Brunswick and Piscataway. Its three legislators are below.
Franklin Township is in District 17. New Jersey elects one senator and two assembly members from each district, so 3 people represent this municipality in Trenton.
“No recorded vote” means the member was not serving when the bill was voted on in January 10, 2022. It is not an abstention, and we do not present it as one.
Senate · District 17 · Democrat
Assembly · District 17 · Democrat
Assembly · District 17 · Democrat
Congregations we know of in Franklin Township that have taken a public abolitionist position — not simply a pro-life one.
We are not aware of a publicly abolitionist church in Franklin Township. We read every New Jersey congregation in the directory we work from — 106 of them — and found one in the whole state, in Glassboro. Abolitionists Rising, the movement's own national organisation, lists the same single church on its New Jersey page and no others. That is not a gap in the research. It is the situation.
If your church has taken a public position on abolition — from the pulpit, in a resolution, or in its own published words — tell us and we will verify it and list it here.
Franklin Township. "Somerset" is a neighbourhood inside Franklin Township, Somerset County — not a municipality. The facility itself is named the Franklin Township Center, which is the more accurate of its two names.
Franklin Township, Somerset County is in Legislative District 17, which elects one senator and two assembly members. All three are listed on this page.
The one in Somerset County. New Jersey has four municipalities named Franklin Township — in Somerset, Gloucester, Hunterdon and Warren counties. Only this one is covered here.
