Bill will try to bar UW from giving out pills

Phil Brinkman Wisconsin State Journal
March 19, 2005
A state lawmaker wants to prohibit clinics serving University of Wisconsin campuses from providing students with birth control pills and devices, contending such services promote promiscuity.

Rep. Daniel LeMahieu, R- Oostburg, said he was outraged when he learned University Health Services, the clinic serving UW-Madison students, had taken out ads in the two campus newspapers suggesting students get advance emergency contraceptive prescriptions before leaving town for spring break.

LeMahieu has begun drafting legislation to prohibit university health centers from promoting or providing the medication, known as the morning after pill. But because the pill is just a higher dose of the contraceptive hormones found in birth control pills, LeMahieu said he also will seek to block the university from prescribing all birth control pills.

Extreme? Not to this father of three college graduates, who maintains the university has no business helping students with family planning.

"Sometimes to get somebody's attention, you hit him over the head with a 2 by 4," LeMahieu said. "Here comes the 2 by 4."

It appears to have had the intended effect. Health professionals, women's rights activists and students expressed shock at a proposal that revives what they said was an outmoded notion that denying young people access to birth control will stop them from having sex.

"This is what I'm now calling the stork theory of reproduction that the Republicans are pushing," said Rep. Therese Berceau, D-Madison. "They would prefer to believe that if we just tell people not to have sex, they won't have sex. And maybe people will then also believe that babies come from the stork."

The ads that sparked the controversy were part of a series of promotions Health Services ran before the week-long spring break that starts Monday. Others advised students to protect their skin from the sun, limit their intake of alcohol and practice safe sex.

"These are the types of ads that we've done for a number of years to get students to think about having a safe and relatively healthy spring break," said Kathleen Poi, the clinic's executive director.

The ad on emergency contraceptives simply acknowledges that accidents can happen, Poi said. Clinics routinely prescribe emergency contraceptives, especially before a trip, she said.

"When a student is here in Madison, they know what their resources are. So if, on Saturday night, the condom breaks, on Sunday they can call and get a prescription for emergency contraception," Poi said. "When they're in Florida, and that same thing happens, they can't."

But LeMahieu maintained the ad encourages reckless behavior with an "it's OK because everybody does it" attitude.

"That ad told them, 'We expect you to be irresponsible on spring break. So, come to us and we'll help you be prepared and we'll help you plan ahead,'" LeMahieu said. "That's the wrong message to send to our young people."

The ads - like Health Services itself - are paid for with student fees. No state tax dollars were used.

UW-Madison senior Le'Andrea Vernon, 21, said she shares LeMahieu's concerns about promiscuous students but wouldn't support a ban on distributing birth control pills on campus.

Vernon is president of the UW-Madison chapter of Proverbs 31 Women, a Christian organization that works to help young women be virtuous. The group supports abstinence, but it realizes that some students will be sexually active, she said.

"If they're going to think that way, they should be safe about it," Vernon said.

Some women saw in the legislation a return to an era, not too long ago, when birth control was outlawed altogether. It wasn't until a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court decision that birth control pills and devices could be sold to unmarried couples. Wisconsin was the last state to repeal its ban on such sales, in 1976.

"I feel like it's the 1950s," said senior Amy Osgood, 22, who called LeMahieu's efforts ridiculous. "I don't understand where he's coming from. These are women who are adults. They're 18 years old. They should be able to take care of their health any way they choose to."

Senior Jane Benzschawel, 22, who coordinates support groups for the Campus Women's Center, said she is frustrated by lawmakers trying to limit women's access to birth control. That approach is self- defeating for people who, like LeMahieu, also oppose abortion rights, she said.

"Instead of helping to create more options for women, they're helping to create more situations in which women will need to have abortions," she said.

Although not introduced as an anti-abortion measure, LeMahieu's bill is one of several in recent years to blur the lines between abortion and birth control, said Lisa Boyce, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin.

While birth control pills - including the morning after pill - operate mainly by preventing ovulation or interfering with fertilization, in some cases they can also prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterine wall, which some liken to abortion.

Abortion opponents are split on the proposal. Barbara Lyons, executive director of Wisconsin Right to Life, said her group has never taken a position on birth control.

But Peggy Hamill, state director of Pro-Life Wisconsin, enthusiastically backs the ban, saying birth control promotes a "contraceptive mentality" hostile toward life. She acknowledged science can't always say how the pill works but said "we advocate always erring on the side of life."

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