Women's health care plays role in politics

Erica Ausloos, an Aurora Health Care pharmacy technician, holds a birth control compact. A one month’s supply of birth control pills can cost up to $60. (Aileen Andrews/The Reporter) 

 

Women's reproductive health care continues to play a role in politics — a pawn in everything from recall elections to the state's new biennial budget to the Obama administration's federal health care law.
A recent Washington Post blog queried "Are the Wisconsin recalls about women?"
The blog went on to state that "although the war on public employees has played the starring role in the recall conflict, women's groups in both parties are lobbying for and against abortion rights and other issues they say are important to female voters."
Gov. Scott Walker's biennial budget eliminates funding ($1 million total) to nine Planned Parenthood clinics in Wisconsin, including the Fond du Lac location. The budget also threatens the Badger Care family planning program, a part of Medicare that provides 57,000 low-income men and women with reproductive health care.
At the federal level, a mandate, expected to take effect Jan 1, 2013 as part of a women's preventive care package, requires that insurance companies cover all birth control costs. Opponents say the changes will cause a spike in health insurance costs, but backers believe it is a critical step in preventing unwanted pregnancies.

Cuts in funding

Fond du Lac's Planned Parenthood serves about 1,200 patients a year, said Amanda Harrington, spokesperson for the organization. Despite the cuts in funding, the Fond du Lac clinic will continue to operate as a provider for individuals, many of them low-income, who are seeking family planning services.
In 2010, the local clinic provided almost 7,000 birth control services, 600 STD tests, 300 screenings for cervical cancer, 200 pregnancy tests, 80 HIV tests and 900 well woman exams.
"It's hard to put into words how important it is to have birth control available for everyone and a place to get annual exams. When the state was developing its family planning program, our Fond du Lac clinic was targeted as a provider for families in this county," Harrington said.
Jessica McCardell, born and raised just outside Eden, said she started going to Planned Parenthood when she was 16. She spoke at a state budget hearing a few months ago about the need for affordable, reproductive health care for women.