Copyright 1999 Journal Sentinel Inc.
Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel
October 8, 1999, Friday Final
SECTION: News Pg. 2
LENGTH:
481 words
HEADLINE: Activists weigh in at hearing on
bill requiring birth control coverage
BYLINE: KEVIN
MURPHY
SOURCE: Special to the Journal Sentinel
DATELINE: Madison
BODY:
Familiar foes clashed at a state Senate hearing Thursday over legislation
that would require health insurers to cover the cost of birth control pills and
devices.
More than 150 people, representing anti-abortion and
abortion-rights positions, registered their written or oral input before the
Senate Human Services and Aging Committee, with backers of the
"contraceptive equity" bill outnumbering the opponents by 6 to
1, a committee clerk said.
Pro-Life Wisconsin has called defeating SB
182 its top legislative priority. The group prepared for the hearing by
distributing to its members 10,000 postcards last month denouncing the bill as
subsidizing the cost of chemical abortions. Members have sent hundreds of the
cards to legislators who have voted down similar bills in two previous sessions,
said Mary Matuska, Pro-Life Wisconsin's legislative director. "This is not only
an anti-life bill, it is an attack on religious beliefs. It would force
pro-lifers, through their insurance premiums, to pay for
something which they are morally opposed to," Matuska said.
The bill
calls for mandatory coverage for the five leading FDA-approved
contraceptive methods: birth control pills, Norplant,
Depo-Provera, IUDs and the "morning-after" pill.
Planned Parenthood of
Wisconsin views the bill as correcting inequities in health
insurance coverage that result in women spending more of the
out-of-pocket costs of health care than men.
Birth control pills can
cost up to $400 a year, and less than half of Wisconsin women have health
insurance policies that cover the cost of
contraceptives, said Amalia Vagts, Planned Parenthood's
legislative director.
State Sen. Gwendolynne Moore, a sponsor of the
bill, addressed the abortion component of the debate, saying that if women had
better access to contraceptives, the number of abortions and
unwanted pregnancies would decrease.
"You're going to hear Wisconsin
Right to Life say that this is an abortion bill, that it's a bill that kills
human life, but these FDA-approved methods for contraceptives
do not interfere with pregnancy once there has been fertilization and
implantation in the uterus," she said.
The bill's opponents disagreed
with the contention that life begins at implantation of a fertilized egg in the
uterus. Instead, they maintained that life begins at fertilization -- and that
birth control methods that reduce opportunities for implantation are the
equivalent of early chemical abortions.
Sister Rosalia Bauer of Beloit
said that she would not oppose requiring coverage for diaphragms and other
devices that prevent fertilization but that the bill includes too many
objectionable contraceptives.
"The bill also covers
Norplant and Depo-Provera, and those, I believe, kill babies," said Bauer, who
is also a registered nurse.
The committee took no action on the bill.
LOAD-DATE: October 9, 1999
