FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 22, 2009

Contact: Matt Sande, Director of Legislation, cell: (262) 352-0890

or Virginia Zignego, Communications Director, (262) 796-111

Budget Committee to Vote on Expanding Confidential Family Planning Program for Teens
Governor’s budget proposal undermines parents, says Pro-Life Wisconsin

Madison – The budget-writing Joint Finance Committee is scheduled to vote tomorrow on Governor Doyle’s budget proposal to expand Wisconsin’s Medicaid Family Planning Waiver Program to include 15, 16, and 17-year-old boys. The program currently provides free, taxpayer-funded birth control to teen girls of similar age without their parents’ knowledge or consent. Federal and state law prohibits parents from being notified that their minor daughters are receiving free contraceptives under this program.

“Providing free, taxpayer-funded birth control to 15-year-old boys and girls behind parents’ backs is horrible public policy, and we urge the finance committee to block expansion of this offensive program,” said Matt Sande, Pro-Life Wisconsin’s director of legislation. “Parents are naturally concerned about the sexual health of their teen children, not only to protect them physically but to guide them morally. If anything, the state should reinforce the parent-child relationship, not undermine it. Who do we want to be the confidants of our sons and daughters – parents, or Planned Parenthood? That is the question parents in this state should be asking themselves, including parents on the committee,” said Sande.

Opposed by Pro-Life Wisconsin from its inception, the Medicaid Family Planning Waiver Program currently provides family planning services and supplies for women aged 15 to 44 who are at or below 200% of the federal poverty level. Women applying for the program are considered presumptively eligible and therefore may receive services immediately with no co-payment. Importantly, family income is disregarded as an eligibility factor for women under 19 who are not married and have no children. Therefore almost every teen girl in the state is financially eligible. Federal and state law prohibits parental notification of an underage child who applies for services under this program. The Governor’s budget proposal expands the program to men aged 15 to 44.

Eight states – Alabama, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Wyoming – prevent minor girls from enrolling in their respective family planning waiver programs, limiting them to women who are at least 19 years of age. Three states limit their programs to women who are least 18 years of age – New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Pro-Life Wisconsin worked the last several legislative sessions to block minor girls’ access to the program by raising the minimum eligibility age from 15 to 18.

“Not only is the Family Planning Waiver Program offensive to parents, but it contributes to an increase in underage pregnancies, abortions, and sexually transmitted diseases by encouraging sexual promiscuity,” said Sande. “Every day, 8,000 teens become infected with an STD. It’s time the state reexamines the so-called benefits of ‘family planning’ for Wisconsin’s children.”

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