Bill prohibits University of Wisconsin campuses from prescribing, dispensing and advertising all forms of birth control and emergency contraceptives.

Minnesota Daily : Protecting women’s reproductive rights on college campuses: "July 27, 2005 | By Kristina Shaw

Minnesotans should be wary of Wisconsin’s ban on birth contol on its university campuses.

College campuses have emerged as the latest battlefield in the nation’s war on women’s reproductive rights. Wisconsin has passed a bill entitled UW Birth Control Ban-AB 343. This bill prohibits University of Wisconsin campuses from prescribing, dispensing and advertising all forms of birth control and emergency contraceptives. Wisconsin State Rep. Dan LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, introduced this bill based on the belief that “dispensing birth control and emergency contraceptives leads to promiscuity.” In reality, full access to all birth control options — including emergency contraceptives — has no effect on the level of women’s promiscuity. Instead, birth control and emergency contraceptives help prevent more than 35,000 unintended births and 800,000 abortions each year.

The bill denies thousands of women essential health-care services and reproductive choices and affects their lives and futures in many ways. With this bill, rape victims will no longer be able to turn to campus health services to obtain emergency contraceptives to prevent an unwanted pregnancy, or receive postrape counseling and education — adding even more stress to a traumatic event. Students who want birth-control prescriptions, emergency contraceptives or even information about preventive birth control are forced to seek out these services at off-campus clinics. This poses a problem not only for students who attend rural Wisconsin university campuses and might not have a clinic nearby but also for many students who attend urban campuses but do not have access to transportation, money, insurance or time to travel to an off-campus clinic. "