Media Contact: Matt Sande
(262) 796-1111 (262) 352-0890 (cell)

Pro-Life Wisconsin Announces 2005-06 Legislative Agenda
Measures include stopping employment discrimination against pro-life pharmacists, protecting parents and their children from “confidential” government-funded birth control, and banning all forms of human cloning

Creating conscience protections for pharmacists
The Pharmacists’ Conscience Clause Bill would protect the right of pharmacists to conscientiously refuse to engage in practices that violate the sanctity of human life. Abortion techniques focusing on chemical means to end the life of preborn babies, such as the morning-after-pill, have received FDA approval. It is common to receive life-ending (abortifacient) drugs in a pharmacy, thus compelling pharmacists to be party to abortion. On the other end of life’s spectrum, efforts are underway that would allow “terminally ill” individuals to request a prescription for lethal drugs from their physicians. Pharmacists would then be asked to fill those prescriptions. No pharmacist should have to daily check his or her conscience at the door. PLW is currently circulating a statewide petition gathering thousands of signatures in support of the pharmacists’ conscience clause bill – the ONLY bill that protects pharmacists who conscientiously refuse to dispense the morning-after pill and other abortion-causing hormonal “contraceptives.”

Removing minor children from Medicaid Family Planning Demonstration Project
PLW worked hard last session to protect our young people from a physically and morally destructive new program called the Medicaid Family Planning Demonstration Project. The Project currently provides free, taxpayer-funded birth control to 15, 16 and 17-year old girls without their parents’ knowledge or consent. Federal and state law prohibits parents from being notified that their minor sons and daughters are receiving free contraceptives under this project. This undermines parental authority and increases underage pregnancy, abortion, and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) by encouraging sexual promiscuity. PLW will again promote legislation that would cancel minor girls’ access to the Project.

Banning human cloning
PLW will push legislation placing a complete ban on human cloning. The Comprehensive Human Cloning Ban would ban so-called “reproductive cloning” –where a cloned person is brought to birth – and so-called “therapeutic cloning” – where a cloned person is killed in the name of scientific progress. The ban also extends to human parthenogenesis, a form of reproduction in which the ovum is artificially stimulated to develop into a new human individual without fertilization. The distinction between “reproductive cloning” and “therapeutic cloning” is illusory, and it is intentionally misleading. Both involve the reproduction of a fully human life. The difference lies in the intended use of that human embryo – whether it is to be implanted in the womb and brought to birth or whether it is to be eviscerated by the extraction of its embryonic stem cells. Either intention is repugnant, in that the dignity and individuality of the human person is thoroughly disregarded.

For more information about PLW’s legislative agenda, please call the Pro-Life Wisconsin State Office at (262) 796-111 or toll-free at 1-877-463-7945.