In recent months, Planned Parenthood has faced much opposition in the Wisconsin courthouse, which has resulted in a major reduction in services as well as an attempted deflation of women’s rights across the state.
Since his election in 2010, Gov. Scott Walker has passed several pieces of legislation aimed toward limiting the reproductive rights of women.
Much of this legislation has included bills to defund Planned Parenthood facilities, prohibit the use of state funds for abortion services, limit laws for legal abortions and limit access to information and care.
After Walker’s initial cut to the organization in his 2011-’13 biennial budget, Planned Parenthood was forced to close five of nine facilities that received state money.
Roughly 3,000 patients had to relocate to another Planned Parenthood clinic to receive services, according to a PolitiFact article, which, in some cases, made distance an inconvenience.
The UW-Madison Campus Women’s Center, an intersectional feminist resource and informational community center, works to provide students with local access to safe sex supplies and acts as a general safe space for people of any gender, sexual orientation or race.
CWC Program Coordinator Margaret Babe said Planned Parenthood provides life-saving care directly to women, and said Walker’s desire to draft bills defunding the organization only flaunts “just how much he believes what he believes.”
“A close examination of this bill and of the defense that conservatives have made of it reveals that it is an ill-conceived, immoralistic and ultimately anti-poor, anti-women attempt to punish people for having sex,” Babe said.
Defunding Planned Parenthood also makes it harder for women to access hormonal birth control, which Babe said may lead to an increase in the use of barrier methods such as condoms.
The CWC is one of the major sources of free contraceptives on UW-Madison’s campus.
“We might see some of those people who are no longer able to access anything except what we can offer them for free,” Babe said.
According to a CNN article, Planned Parenthood provided services for 2.7 million patients in 2013, and claims to be the largest provider of reproductive health services.
Planned Parenthood provides birth control, cancer screenings, STD tests, treatment and education.
Only 3 percent of Planned Parenthood services include abortion, the primary issue Wisconsin politicians have focused on when attacking the organization.
According to Babe, CWC members post frequently on social media to discuss women’s issues and they attend protests supporting Planned Parenthood, among other organizations.
Babe stated the changes Walker has made to Planned Parenthood affect not only women, but everyone who relies on the organization’s services.
“I think [people] should care about this issue because it shows Scott Walker’s true stripes,” Babe said. “It affects women directly, it affects women’s partners directly, it affects people of all genders who rely on Planned Parenthood for ultimately life-saving care.”
Babe's comments are her own, and these views do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of the Campus Women's Center as a whole.
