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WRTL Action Guts Conscience Rights Protection Bill
PLW Letterhead

Wednesday, April 23, 2003


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

WRTL Action Guts Conscience Rights Protection Bill

Bowing to opposition from Planned Parenthood, Wisconsin Right to Life today helped pass a substitute amendment to Assembly Bill 67 that, in effect, guts the bill. AB 67 was originally crafted to afford comprehensive workplace protection to Wisconsin medical personnel who do not want to be forced to participate in life-taking measures, including chemical abortion.

“Wisconsin Right to Life has succeeded in having their own bill amended to specifically strip away critical conscience protection for medical personnel who choose not to prescribe, administer, or dispense so-called birth control drugs and devices, including the abortion-causing morning after pill,” said Mary Matuska, deputy director of legislative affairs for Pro-Life Wisconsin. “This is a sad day when even some ‘pro-life’ organizations refuse to recognize the fact that chemical abortion exists and pro-life pharmacists are being targeted for refusing to dispense the morning after pill.”

Pro-Life Wisconsin contends that the bill, in its amended form, actually aids the pro-abortion lobby in efforts to oppose legal protection for preborn children.

“The compromise language was unnecessary and it works to divide the pro-life movement in Wisconsin,” stated Matt Sande, Pro-Life Wisconsin director of legislative affairs. “To skew the debate by advancing the misleading notion that abortion is not chemical in nature (by explicitly excluding any conscience protections surrounding it) is a step backwards in the defense of preborn children.”

In response to pleas from Wisconsin pro-life pharmacists who have experienced employment discrimination, Pro-Life Wisconsin has been working since 1996 to pass a law to protect their right of conscience. “We will continue to work towards that goal in the form of AB 63, a truly comprehensive pharmacist conscience clause bill,” continued Sande.

“Planned Parenthood has railed over the mere prospect of ethical pharmacists rightfully refusing to dispense deadly abortifacient birth control,” said Peggy Hamill, state director of Pro-LifeWisconsin. “One can only conclude that Wisconsin Right to Life, in pushing to remove this specific language, has conceded the argument to Planned Parenthood.”