A recent survey conducted by Family Planning Health Services, Inc. and the Wisconsin Religious Coalition determined Wisconsin teenagers have easy access to affordable emergency contraception. However, several organizations make the morning after pill more available and are more helpful to teenagers than others.
The survey sought to determine which of three types of establishments were most likely to provide teenage girls information about and access to emergency contraceptionA-—hospital emergency rooms, crisis pregnancy centers or family planning agencies. The results are complied from real phones calls made to various places about obtaining EC.
""Overall, family planning agencies provided the greatest access to emergency contraception. Nearly 92 percent of the phone calls to family planning agencies used in the survey ended with the caller receiving accurate information on how and where to get EC,"" the survey concluded.
Hospital emergency rooms did not fare so well in the survey's assessment, which said their personnel were often ""unable or unwilling to provide information about EC to callers.""
""Emergency rooms ... didn't see this as an urgent situation and a lot of times ... I felt like they wanted to make me somebody else's problem,"" said Frances Irwin, outreach coordinator for FPHS, who made some of the survey's phone calls.
But crisis pregnancy centers did even worse, almost never providing access to EC.
""Taken as a whole, Wisconsin crisis pregnancy centers consistently gave out inaccurate information when they were asked for help preventing an unwanted pregnancy,"" said Lon Newman, executive director for FPHS.
Despite some of the survey's findings and negative media attention, the availability results for the state were largely positive.
""Unfortunately, a lot of the public dialogue about emergency contraception these days is that it's hard to get ... the truth is that every single teen in Wisconsin has the opportunity to get their hands on emergency contraception easily and affordably,"" said Maggie Keneen, director of development and public affairs for FPHS.
