Planned Parenthood Within Wisconsin
Planned Parenthood Within Wisconsin
Planned Parenthood Federation of America is one of the largest providers in affordable health care for men, women, and teenagers in the nation along with the largest sex education provider in the nation. Their overall mission is to provide “the fundamental right of each individual, throughout the world, to manage his or her fertility…”, regardless of who they are or where they may come from. The matter of the fact though, is that there have been recent attempts to defund this organization throughout states, Wisconsin being one of those states included. This movement is growing and becoming extremely problematic for men and women throughout the states.
The negative effects of more states trying to defund Planned Parenthood Federation of America is appalling. Millions of lower and middle class people will be out of health care that they need. The “597,000 prevented pregnancies” will turn into pregnancies, the “270,000 pap tests and 360,000 breast exams” will be taken away. Then the more than “4.2 million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted infections, including more than 650,000 HIV tests” will be provided no more if we let this trend continue. In a recent study they found that, “Planned Parenthood Federation of America is sometimes the only available provider for low-income women who need family planning services. ‘In many communities, there are not other health care providers that would be equipped to fill the void created by the prohibition of funding for a qualified, trusted family planning provider.’”
In 2011, Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin voted to defund the family planning provider, which forced five Planned Parenthood health centers to close down, the most recent one in Fond du Lac community. This specific clinic did not provide any abortion services, but it offered birth control, sexually transmitted disease testing and treatment, annual exams and breast cancer screenings, and pregnancy tests to over 1,000 patients each year. In February of 2016, Scott Walker signed two bills to forward the movement of republicans to defund this family planning non-profit organization. One of the bills restricts how much Planned Parenthood can be reimbursed for prescription drugs, stripping away an estimated amount of $4 million each year. The second bill would be taking away $3.5 million in government payments because they provide abortions, these two bills will be affecting the 60,000 patients that Planned Parenthood sees annually in Wisconsin, over 60% of those patients are under the poverty line. With these two bills clearly taking away part of the funding, the prices will rise and force the patients to go without the health services that they need, that they deserve.
One bill that could affect Wisconsin to its core, is a bill written by Representative Diane Black in 2015, proposing that “for a one-year period, the availability of federal funds for any purpose to Planned