*yawn* WAKE UP

[kyburg]

Couldn't happen here? Did.

Wisconsin has banned all forms of birth control, including condoms on its university campuses.

Any rollback of women’s reproductive rights is inexcusable, but the bill is especially disturbing because it is directed at college campuses and targets a population in which there tends to be a high concurrency of sexual assaults and unplanned sexual encounters. During a time in their lives when they need full access to all birth control options the most, this bill denies women access to any options at all.

You know who's responsible? the winner of the 'Monthly Misconception Award,' Representative Daniel LeMahieu (R-Oostburg).

Here. I'll make it easy for you.


This guy.

Here's his info.

Go tell him - and I know some of you can do it based on personal experience - just how STOOPID this is.

And those of you in Wisconsin? Elect someone conservative with a brain - this ain't it.

Comments

[lorriejharris.livejournal.com]

What's next? Taking away our right to vote?

[sakuya-masaki.livejournal.com]

Wisconsin = STD capital of the world

[http://users.livejournal.com/little_e_/]

technically, that's probably bangcock or somehwere near lake victoria.

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

Bad. Very bad. What about married students? Or staff that might use an on campus clinic.

[vampireanneke.livejournal.com]

This is a great way to oppress Wisconsin woman. If your a smart woman your more likely to oppose men, so now they will suppress them by limiting their ability to do well in college.

[phoenix--rising.livejournal.com]

Hi there! You're friendly Wisconsin guy here.

*waves*

Just a few observations.

First) I live in Madison, the capitol, and there hasn't been a single word mentioned about this (yet) in the various news agencies in town. (Then again, I've been busy helping people move all week...)

But, a lil research done on the bill, AB 343 (http://www.legis.state.wi.us/2005/data/AB343hst.html) shows thats its only been passed by the Assembly (Republican control) and has been sent to the Senate. (Which is still Republican controlled, I think.) Then it should go to the Governor's desk, and if he's a Democrat worth his salt, should veto it instantly. And I doubt the bill would garner enough support that the senate or assembly could override the Governor's veto.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

And you've made a couple of phone calls and such? Hmm?

[phoenix--rising.livejournal.com]

I'm composing an e-mail to my state legislatures, and Rep. Tammy Baldwin (Our US Representative).

I'll probably be posting it on my livejournal when its done.

[riverheart.livejournal.com]

I posted this as a comment in ginmar's post on the subject:

The bill does not prohibit the sale, prescribing, discussion of, advertising, or dispensing of condoms.

It does not prohibit the sale, prescribing, discussion of, advertising, or dispensing of non-hormonal medication.

It specifically prohibits emergency contraception. That is without question. You can't talk about it (advertise), tell a woman where it's available ("it's at Planned Parenthood, off-campus" is now forbidden speech) if she is entitled to university health care services (that includes professors and staff at most universities, as well as students, and, indeed, that health care coverage is probably part of an employee's compensation and benefits package). You can't give a woman a prescription for it to get it elsewhere; she's going to have to find another doctor off-campus and unaffiliated with the university who will prescribe it, with the extra cost, hassle, and time pressure.

Read one way, it also prohibits the above with respect to all hormonal medication, not just emergency contraception. Not just contraception, period. That includes every form of hormonal birth control: pills, implants, rings, patches, you name it. Barrier methods are still allowed, apparently. It also may well prohibit all other types of hormonal medication, including estrogen therapy for migraines in post-menopausal women (and there are some women still using this). It includes the hormones taken by transgendered folks who are in transition. It includes finasteride (Proscar), taken to treat benign prostate enlargement and which lessens the chances of developing prostate cancer in men who have said prostate enlargement. (Male staff and professors will be affected most by this, rather than the typical male student.) It includes fertility drugs. It includes tamoxifen, used to treat breast cancer.

Point that out when you call or write. The language of the bill could well be interpreted to mean all of the above. This is not just bad in terms of contraception and the aftermath of rape, it's bad medicine all 'round.

[reannon.livejournal.com]

By my reading of the article, it seems only University of Wisconsin campuses are involved. Their on-campus clinics would be prohibited from prescribing or dispensing birth control. There's nothing that says women can't get their birth control elsewhere and use it while living on campus. Thank God. Maybe that's what you meant - when I saw your post, I thought you meant birth control could not be USED on campus, which would be a big problem considering how much sex goes on in a college dorm. :)

Doesn't make the bill any more palatable. Insane, as a matter of fact. I simply don't understand these people.

[phoenix--rising.livejournal.com]

True, but most students recieve their health care through the campus, if they're full time students, they're not likely to be able to afford it elsewhere.

[http://users.livejournal.com/little_e_/]

plus students tend to be very *new* to taking care of their own health care, and if the options aren't even *mentioned* to them, they likely won't think of them. (speaking as a student.) maybe after a couple of years they'll wise up and realize that they can get contraception at the sev, but there's still a critical couple of years of late-night problem sets and hanging out and (at other colleges i suppose) drinking in which students are just going to be horny at 3 am and want sex *now*.

this is why we keep the condoms and lube posted in the hallway... and the bathroom...

i'd like to say that we're all superior over here, but i know they made the RAs in buildings with highschoolers take down the condom pacs.

yup. they made it harder for college students to obtain bc so that it wouldn't look like they were encouraging highschoolers to have sex. never mind that if the highschoolers are going to have sex, they're *going* to have sex, and condoms are *not* going to enter into it. the boy will just promise to pull out...

but we're more concenred with looking good in front of the parents than preventing pregnancies... bleh.

[reannon.livejournal.com]

Huh. But is that really true anymore? Now that most college students are still covered under their parents' health insurance until they graduate? I know that was the case among most of the college students I knew, including myself, but that was many years aog. Of course, the ones that won't have it would be poorer kids and nontraditional students who really need the help. :(

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

I could be claimed on my parent's tax return as a dependent, but I didn't have health insurance - and that was back in 1984, dearling.

I used my student health clinic for everything I could - they drew the line at sutures when I had a car accident, and only then did I go to the ER.

I just don't get this. It's NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS.

[reannon.livejournal.com]

Amen. I am entrenching myself here in Illinois, where Gov. Blagojevich has ordered all pharmacists throughout the state to fill the damn prescriptions or find another line of work. I want to secede and be our own little country.

[http://users.livejournal.com/little_e_/]

i'm sure as heck not.

[moropus.livejournal.com]

OMG.

[jobunches.livejournal.com]

This is the shit that happens when your brain is made of cheese...

Minnesota better not even consider passing a bill like that over here! It's rather stupid...and appalling to say the least...

[phoenix--rising.livejournal.com]

Then again, Republican comes from Oostburg. I had to look it up to know where it is. Some tiny village. Not all of us Wisconsinites have cheese-for-brains.

(Even though I do like cheese)

[makeitepic.livejournal.com]

WHY!?! That's really stupid.

[http://users.livejournal.com/little_e_/]

because birth control turns women into sluts, don't you know that?

[http://users.livejournal.com/little_e_/]

Done. Wrote the guy. Called him un-Christian for promoting abortion, and that I am ashamed to have him in my country.

[phoenix--rising.livejournal.com]

Ok, after re-reading the article, and then looking at the actually bill, it appears the article is abit over dramatifying things a bit.

First, the article claims that it would prohibit all forms of concraceptives and devices to provent STD's, aka condoms, etc. etc...

However, the language on the bill is pretty simple. The bill is prohibiting only the day-after pill, and similar things. Heres the analysis by the Legislative Reference Bureau, which job is to make the complicated legalese into something the average legislator can understand :P

Analysis by the Legislative Reference Bureau

This bill prohibits a person employed by or under contract with the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System (UWS) to provide health care services to registered students from dispensing or prescribing a hormonal medication or combination of medications that is administered only after sexual intercourse for the postcoital control of fertility to a registered student or to any other person entitled to receive university health care services or from advertising the availability of the hormonal medication or combination of medications. The bill also prohibits a person
from advertising, dispensing, or prescribing the hormonal medication or
combination of medications on UWS property, except for the property leased to the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics Authority.

Now...I don't like being mislead by articles like that. But, I still don't agree with the proposed legislation. Students have to pay for medical services, its part of tuition. With tuition already so high, they shouldn't be given gimped out health services.

I just wanted to make clear what the law would actually do. It would not force the university to ban all forms of pregnancy and STD provention.

[riverheart.livejournal.com]

I can't necessarily say we're safe here on the West Coast from this sort of idiocy, either. All it takes is somebody like, oh, Lois McMahon (thankfully ousted last year as our Rep by Derek Kilmer) to introduce a bill like this, and convince enough family values sex-fearing legislators to vote for it...Seattle and King County don't rule the WA legislature. Portland and Eugene don't rule the OR legislature, and SF and LA don't rule the CA legislature.

Such a bill probably wouldn't pass in any West Coast state. But note that "probably"; it's not a certainty. The only way we can ensure that such things don't become law is to work our tails off, every election cycle, to get people of sense elected.

[poetpaladin.livejournal.com]

Alas. When will we liberals learn...

No one pays attention to people expressing their outrage in word and speech. Get some guns and vote early and often...