Contact: State Director Peggy Hamill or Director of Legislative Affairs Matt Sande
(262) 796-1111, (414) 416-0489 or info@prolifewisconsin.org

Legislative Committee Suspends Medicaid Family Planning Project
Project undermines parents and is ineffective, says Pro-Life Wisconsin

The Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules today voted 6 to 4 to suspend an emergency rule implementing the five-year Medical Assistance Family Planning Demonstration Project, which extended Medicaid family planning services to single, childless women aged 15 to 44 with family income up to 185% of the federal poverty level. DHFS contends pregnancy prevention keeps low-income women from becoming eligible for Medicaid and BadgerCare, reducing potential costs.

Pro-Life Wisconsin (PLW) applauds Committee co-chairmen Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) and Sen. Joe Leibham (R-Sheboygan) for suspending the project. Testifying before the Committee that the rule not only works to undermine parental authority in the area of child contraception, but also that family planning is not a proven method of reducing underage pregnancies or abortion, PLW presented compelling data indicating that broad contraceptive availability may actually work to increase underage pregnancy and abortion by encouraging sexual promiscuity.

“Federal and state law prohibit parental notification of an underage child who applies for services under the Family Planning Demonstration Project,” said Matt Sande, Director of Legislation for Pro-Life Wisconsin. “Contraceptive drugs and devices pose serious health risks for women, including blood clots, cancer, strokes and heart attacks. What parent would not want to know that their minor child is ingesting such potentially life threatening drugs, not to mention why they are doing so?”

PLW cited a study by Dr. David Paton of Nottingham University Business School, “The Economics of Family Planning and Underage Conceptions.” Paton investigated the impact of family planning on teenage conceptions and abortions by testing data from 16 UK regions over a 14-year period. Published in the March 2002 Journal of Health Economics, the study’s conclusions debunk Planned Parenthood’s theory that the provision of contraceptives to teens will reduce underage pregnancies.

According to Paton, “Although family planning may make sexually active teenagers less likely to get pregnant, it seems that it also encourages others to start having sex. Some of these will get pregnant through contraceptive failure and, if anything, the overall effect of expanding family planning services for under-16s has been to increase pregnancies and abortion.” (emphasis added) Other studies have shown that greater availability of contraception is linked to increased rates of abortion. In Maryland, the first state to enact a contraceptive insurance mandate, the number of abortions rose by 1,226 the year after the mandate became effective.

“By providing contraceptives to children, family planning clinics have helped fuel teen sexual activity, which leads to pregnancy and abortion,” said Sande. “We therefore strongly dispute the estimated cost savings that the Department attributes to the project.”