Pro-Life Wisconsin to Attorney General Lautenschlager:
Forcing Contraceptive Coverage is Still Bad Public Policy

Statement from Peggy Hamill, State Director, Pro-Life Wisconsin:

Once again, common sense has fallen prey to political posturing. Last October, Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager issued an “informal” legal opinion that the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act (WFEA) would likely require employers who provide broad-based prescription drug coverage to provide contraceptive coverage as well. Today, the Attorney General has issued a “formal” opinion stating that Wisconsin law prohibits both employers (including employers affiliated with a church whose tenets prohibit the use of contraceptives) and state colleges and universities from excluding prescription contraceptives from their drug plans. It’s increasingly obvious that what the liberals in Madison cannot pull off legislatively, they will seek to ram through the courts.

One important question is not being asked: Is this really necessary? Pregnancy is not a disease. Unborn children are not the moral or legal equivalent of tumors. The government should not force insurance companies – and the policyholders who will pay for this expansion through increased premiums – to cover drugs and devices that are purely elective.
Importantly, many of these so-called contraceptives do not always prevent conception. Instead, they can act and often do act to cause early abortions by preventing implantation of the newly-conceived human being. Just read the tiny print inside the packaging of the patch, the pill, or “emergency contraception.” Let’s also remember that many of these drugs and devices come with serious, sometimes deadly, side effects.

Yet the so-called pro-choice movement wants the millions of Americans who oppose abortion and know human life begins at the moment of fertilization to pay – through their insurance premiums – for the elective actions of others. What about our choice? What about our consciences. And what about the rights of those health insurers and health providers who have religious, moral, or ethical objections to offering these drugs and devices, which from their perspective are the antitheses of true health care?

It’s easy to mouth the mantra of choice when any issue surrounding human reproduction is broached. But let’s take a deep look at what they are really advocating:

* Forcing insurance companies and their policyholders to fund birth control chemicals and devices isn’t really pro-choice. It’s nothing more than another attempt to force all of us to fund an anti-life agenda that endangers the lives of women and their children.

* Compounding skyrocketing health insurance premiums by mandating medically unnecessary items is economically foolish. Forced to cover such expenses, companies may respond by downsizing or eliminating health care coverage altogether.
Hopefully, no Wisconsin court will share the Attorney General’s opinion. That would certainly be in the best interest of the conscience and economy of our great state.

-End-