Should the government defund planned parenthood to this extent?

Story by Spectator Staff

The Wisconsin state Senate passed two bills Jan. 20 that leads to Planned Parenthood losing over $7 million in state funding.

According to a Star Tribune article, one bill requires abortion providers to bill Medicaid only for the actual acquisition and dispensing fee price for birth control pills, which is currently acquired at a discounted rate, leading to a loss of around $4.5 million. The other bill will take away its $3 million in Title X money.

“It’s going towards birth control, which from what I understand helps people not get pregnant when they don’t want to so therefore will not have an abortion, so this whole bill seems very counterintuitive to me,” one member said.

During the Senate debate, democrats said this will limit access to birth control since Planned Parenthood won’t be able to supply it. Republicans denied that anyone would lose access to birth control and that they don’t want taxpayer dollars subsidizing a private abortion provider.

“I know that a lot people I’m surrounded with, they only had the option to go to Planned Parenthood,” another member said. “Being a college kid, we don’t have a ton of money to spend on healthcare, especially being away from home and not with our families.”

According to the bill, the federal grant money will instead go to the state’s Well Woman, which provide breast and cervical cancer screenings.

Multiple members believed these bills will have an opposite effect than their intended purpose, saying there is a lot of misinformation included with the bills.

The Spectator board voted unanimously against the Planned Parenthood bills.