Wisconsin bill targets the 'morning-after' pill
Jill Burcum
Star Tribune
Published July 8, 2005
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But a bill moving through Wisconsin's Legislature could prohibit student health service workers at the state's 26 college campuses from giving that counseling -- or prescribing emergency contraception.
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Forty years after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision invalidated state bans on contraception, Wisconsin could become the first state to limit college students' access to morning-after birth-control pills.
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The legislation, which has been approved by the Wisconsin House and appears headed for passage in the state Senate, is being closely monitored by both sides of the abortion debate across the nation. Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle is vowing to veto the bill if it reaches his desk.
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"This is just basic, basic female health care, and it's extremely disturbing ... that women's health is under attack here and at the national level," said Tanya Atkinson, field manager for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin. Wisconsin legislators also are considering a bill that would let pharmacists decline to fill prescriptions for birth-control pills on moral grounds. Some pharmacists around the country are objecting to giving women morning-after pills.
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The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, reflecting the consensus of the medical profession, does not consider the drug an abortion pill because it believes pregnancy does not begin until a fertilized egg implants in the lining of the uterus.
So far, Virginia is the only other state that has considered a campus health service ban on the morning-after pill, said the bill's author, Rep. Dan LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, a Presbyterian publisher from southeast Wisconsin. That measure did not become law in Virginia, according to organizations that track legislatures.
The bill is not intended to pave the way for all birth control to be banned in Wisconsin, said LeMahieu, who added that he realizes that most people in the state support its use. Instead, he said, the bill is an attempt to rein in university health services. "I just don't think the university should be providing this type of medication," said LeMahieu, who introduced the bill after University of Wisconsin-Madison student health services ran an advertisement promoting the medication as part of students' spring break preparations.
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Jill Burcum is at jburcum@startribune.com.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/587/5496055.html