The Wisconsin State Assembly voted late Thursday to prohibit the University of Wisconsin System from advertising, prescribing or dispensing the morning-after pill on its statewide campuses.
"We applaud the leadership of the State Assembly for responding to the glaring need for oversight on this important University System issue," said Peggy Hamill, state director of Pro-Life Wisconsin. "The morning-after pill can act to chemically abort tiny preborn babies, and it is a powerful and potentially dangerous drug regimen for young women. It is certainly not the place of our public universities to be handing it out," said Hamill.
On a 49 to 41 vote, Assembly Bill 343, authored by State Representative Dan LeMahieu (R-Oostburg), passed the Assembly unamended and will now move to the State Senate. Senator Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) is the lead Senate author of the bill.
"This is common-sense legislation, and we thank Representative LeMahieu for his courageous determination in moving the bill forward," said Matt Sande, director of legislative affairs for Pro-Life Wisconsin. "Last night’s vote in the Assembly is proof that Wisconsinites do not want their publicly funded universities involved in the potential destruction of innocent human life or exposed to lawsuits brought by young women who have suffered serious side effects from the morning-after pill."
In written testimony to the Assembly Family Law Committee in support of AB 343, Dr. Michael Phillips, Chief of Pathology at Oconomowoc Memorial Hospital, explained that human life begins at fertilization. "When a single spermatozoa passes through the ovum cell wall a new human organism is formed. Every person was once at that one-cell stage of human life. In medical jurisprudence, when this new human organism is destroyed before development is complete it is called an abortion. Any substance interfering with this development is medically defined as an abortifacient. This includes any substance interfering with endometrial implantation, including so-called "emergency contraceptive" pills.
"The morning-after pill is a heavy duty hormone combination, of which one side effect is to create an inhospitable endometrial lining to prevent embryo implantation," said Dr. Phillips. "This effect is a hormone induced abortion."
Assembly Bill 343 was prompted by a series of recent ads published in campus newspapers by UW-Madison Health Services encouraging students to "prepare" for spring break by accessing "emergency contraception," also known as the morning-after pill, over the phone and without an appointment.
Source: Pro-Life Wisconsin
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