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Written by Teri Huyck
Mar 10, 2011
Teri Huyck
What a difference a year makes.
Last year I was at our state Capitol watching former Gov. Jim Doyle sign the Healthy Youth Act, a long-overdue law ensuring that Wisconsin youth get accurate and age-appropriate information in Wisconsin sex education classrooms.
Fast forward to today, when we are facing serious attacks on access to healthcare at the state and federal level.
At the state level, I join with the chorus of tens of thousands of Wisconsinites outraged at the overreach of conservative politicians working to advance an extreme agenda in a Trojan horse barreling through a purported state of fiscal emergency.
Gov. Scott Walker, who has been a staunch opponent of reproductive healthcare his entire political career, now wants his unelected political appointees to be able to make drastic changes to Wisconsin’s successful BadgerCare Family Planning program through the so-called Budget Repair Bill, which is a power grab unlike anything we have seen before.
And in his budget proposal, Walker completely eliminates the state’s only dedicated family-planning funding stream, while pushing to allow insurance plans to exclude prescription birth control in drug plans.
The budget also gives the state Department of Health and Human Services the power to make men ineligible for reproductive healthcare under Medicaid, which currently covers HIV and other STD testing and treatment, cancer screenings and contraceptive counseling.
While all eyes are on the deep cuts for Wisconsin workers, children and families in Walker’s budget proposal, an all-out war on women is also being waged in Congress. Five of Wisconsin’s eight U.S. representatives voted to prohibit Planned Parenthood health centers from receiving any federal funds for the basic preventive healthcare we provide to millions of patients throughout the country, including more than 73,000 un- and under-insured Wisconsinites, more than 31,000 of whom seek care at our Milwaukee health centers.
One in five women has relied on Planned Parenthood for basic women’s healthcare at some point in their lives, and 60 percent of our patients consider us to be their only healthcare provider.
These same representatives also voted to eliminate Title X, America’s decades-old family planning program. We appreciate our Reps. Gwen Moore, Ron Kind and Tammy Baldwin for recognizing that, at $317 million, less than 0.1 percent of the federal budget, Title X is a small price to pay for more than 4 million lifesaving cancer screenings and over 6 million STD tests, including a million HIV tests, for women who otherwise would have nowhere to turn.
None of these funds pays for abortions.
It’s no understatement to say that the state and federal attacks mean we’re in the midst of the most aggressive political assault on women’s health in history. And while this plays out, women’s lives hang in the balance.
Take, for instance, this story: In the wake of the U.S. House vote to eliminate Title X and defund Planned Parenthood, Judy X called me and told me something remarkable: “Honestly, if it wasn’t for Planned Parenthood and Title X funding, I wouldn’t be here today.”
In the early 1990s, Judy was a divorced single mother in her mid-30s going to school and working hard to make ends meet as she raised her daughter in Waukesha. Every year, she came to Planned Parenthood for her annual exam.
One year, out of the blue, a routine pap test came back very abnormal. Planned Parenthood’s nurse referred Judy to an ob/gyn who diagnosed her with a rare form of cervical cancer. The doctor told Judy that if she had skipped her regular check-up that year, the cancer would have been very advanced by the time she showed symptoms.
Judy credits Planned Parenthood with saving her life.
In attacking Planned Parenthood, politicians who want to overturn Roe v. Wade are undermining the organization that does more than any other to prevent unintended pregnancy. In eliminating funding for reproductive healthcare, politicians are taking away the preventive healthcare currently available to 73,000 un- and under-insured Wisconsinites seeking care at Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin.
This reckless political assault needs to end.
Teri Huyck is president of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin.
