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Contact: Matt Sande, Director of Legislative Affairs
(262) 352-0890 or
Katherine Ribnek, Communications Director
(262) 796-1111

Bill Defending Parental Rights Passes Assembly Committee

Madison – An Assembly committee gave their approval Thursday to Assembly Bill (AB) 634, legislation that would prevent 15, 16 and 17 year-old girls from receiving free, taxpayer-funded birth control without their parent’s knowledge or consent under a new state/federal family planning program. AB 634 would eliminate minor children’s access to the Medicaid Family Planning Demonstration Project by raising the minimum age requirement from 15 to 18 years of age.

In response to compelling testimony from parents across Wisconsin, the Assembly Family Law Committee on a 5 to 1 vote sent the measure on for expected approval by the full Assembly. Pro-Life Wisconsin applauds the leadership and support of the bill’s authors, Representatives Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend), Lorraine Seratti (R-Spread Eagle), and Scott Gunderson (R-Waterford), as well as the following Committee members who voted in favor of AB 634: Committee Chairperson Carol Owens (R-Oshkosh) and Representatives Peggy Krusick (D-Milwaukee), Steve Kestell (R-Elkhart Lake), Scott Jensen (R-Waukesha), and Don Friske (R-Merrill). The dissenting vote came from Representative Terese Berceau (D-Madison).

“We thank Representative Owens for moving AB 634 forward,” said Matt Sande, Pro-Life Wisconsin’s legislative affairs director. “Providing birth control to 15 year-old boys and girls behind their parent’s backs and making the taxpayers pay for it is horrible public policy. Parents are naturally concerned about the sexual health of their teen children, not only to protect them physically but to instruct them morally. If anything, the state should be reinforcing the parent-child relationship, not undermining it.”

Pro-Life Wisconsin is a proud member of Parents First!, a coalition of more than twenty organizations representing thousands of families across Wisconsin working to advance AB 634. “We know that government-funded birth control contributes to an increase in underage pregnancy, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases by encouraging sexual promiscuity,” added Mary Matuska, Pro-Life Wisconsin’s deputy director of legislative affairs. “Pulling kids out of this program is clearly in their and their parents’ best interest.”

Originally introduced as Assembly Bill 383, the legislation was reintroduced as AB 634. AB 634 delays the effective date of the bill to July 1, 2004 so as not to jeopardize increased federal Medicaid matching rates for states included in the federal Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003.

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