WAC position paper on Family Planning Waiver

This organization never has and never will oppose access to health services for anyone. However, we do oppose the way female reproductive health care is currently being delivered, especially to low income women and teens. We ask legislators to look beyond the rhetoric, the tax savings, and the examples of worse-case scenarios to take this opportunity to really analyze the impact of the Family Planning Waiver in Wisconsin.

Family Planning

Sexually active teenagers and unmarried adults are rarely planning families. Generally, they want to have sex but not babies. Generally, that is a personal choice, one with immense public repercussions. But rather than address that behavioral choice, Wisconsin governmental departments deal only with the consequences of it. The behavior is deemed a personal right, but the right to have a baby is not. Only prevention of a baby is equated with personal responsibility. The waiver was not about family planning. Wanting children is a prerequisite to family planning. Surely testing and treatment of low income women and minors for infections and diseases is funded by other government programs. The waiver was unneeded except to put teens on birth control.

Pregnancy and giving birth are detrimental for teens, their babies, and our society. Billions are spent to prevent births among low income women and teens. That begs the question “Just who is doing the “family planning”? There is an inherent problem when teen pregnancy prevention is a program of temporary sterilization with a pill, a patch, a device or an injection. Lack of results could lead to a permanent sterility initiative. Amidst all the statistics, focus of medical care has to be on individual girls. What is best for a teen is that sexual activity be delayed until, as a mother, she and baby can thrive. That keeps the government out of family planning and limited to an educative function.

A solid teen pregnancy prevention program is proactive and centered on empowerment of girls to be change makers in their own lives and in their communities. There has to be positive alternatives to teen motherhood available and teens must be mentored to pursue those alternatives. To say no to sex, teens have to say yes to something better. Birth control alone changes nothing in teen lives or in our country. Our kids deserve more than damage control.

Tax Relief

If an American can’t pay for health services, the taxpayers do. It is irrelevant whether that entitlement is generated by city, county, state or federal taxes or fees. A federally subsidized program doesn’t save Wisconsinites money by adding layers of administration. Millions are spent on salaries and supervision before one dollar reaches patient services. According to Planned Parenthood calculations, Wisconsin family planning services cost more than $18.2 million annually. Statistics indicate that has bought increased pregnancy rates, barely fluctuating birth rates, escalating STD rates, spread of HIV to new populations, and increasing abortion with the advent of drug induced options. The quality of life for low income women benefits little from this largesse; the case could be made that low income teens are actually victimized by the “safety net”.

Systemic Failure

If the government had paid Phillip Morris and other cigarette companies to provide free filter cigarettes to teens, to teach the benefits of smoking them in our schools, and to manage the medical care for lung damage, we would all recognize the preposterousness of the situation. Yet, the government pays Planned Parenthood’s coalition to provide free contraceptives, to teach contraception in our schools, and then to provide medical care when contraception is used. With their in-house research, political clout, government partnerships, government funding and access to teens, these agencies are so powerful, they become unaccountable and untouchable. Claiming success for pregnancy prevention alone is gratuitous when co-infections and diseases are also outcomes of sexual behavior. Claiming that access to free contraceptives constitutes pregnancy prevention is misleading since a cause and effect relationship is lacking.

Age Limits

The age limit in the Family Planning Waiver would be a non-issue if
teen parenthood was beneficial
parents were unrestricted participants in the reproductive medical care of their children
underage patient confidentiality was not used to justify government reimbursement
child-bearing age wasn’t now 4-5 years younger than the law-stipulated 15 years, and
existing laws were followed and enforced.
At the 2003 legislative hearing on this bill, Planned Parenthood claimed
incest and domestic abuse warranted their universal actions in loco parentis
patient confidentiality requires categorizing minors as low income “families” of one, thus making their treatment reimbursable by the government
medical privilege trumps the law in the treatment of children under the age of fifteen.
By their manipulation of the law, family planning clinics have created the taxpayer-paid burden for 85% of teen pregnancies that they now use to justify their service contracts. This legislation is a legitimate response to a situation of the family planning clinics own making.

Testing and Treatment

Sexually transmitted diseases, most HIV, pregnancy, and cervical cancer are results of sexual activity--period. A law neither puts people at risk nor keeps them safe. People put themselves at risk and have to be aggressively warned that sexual behavior, regardless of intervention with contraception or condoms, will keep them at risk. In view of the epidemic proportions of many of these outcomes, relegating medical interventions to teenagers, without the consistent, caring supervision of a parent or adult mentor, is folly. Teen brain development research contradicts the possibility of success with this approach. Once infected with a viral STD, the disease and its treatment can be intensive, long term, painful and stressful. Infected teens need loving adults, not just medical professionals.

Recommendations

Pass this legislation as the first step in the reform of reproductive health care in this state.
Form an unbiased blue ribbon citizens committee to review and assess the state’s reproductive health program