Birth Control Protection Act
 The Birth Control Protection Act will require pharmacists, when presented with a prescription, to dispense birth control without delay. It also ensures that birth control will never be included in the definition of abortion under Wisconsin law. There is an alarming trend of rogue pharmacists denying women legal birth control. In theory, the concept is simple: a woman walks into a pharmacy with a birth-control prescription from her doctor and should walk out with the medication – without intimidation, without delay, without a run-around. But in reality, there is a growing movement in Wisconsin of pharmacists refusing to fill women’s legally prescribed birth-control prescriptions. Some pharmacists even go so far as to lecture women, humiliate them in public, or refuse to hand back the prescription after they refuse to fill it. Women deserve immediate access to birth control at the pharmacy window. When a woman and her doctor have made the decision that a prescription for birth control is in her best interest, a third party has no right to override that decision. When women choose birth control as their contraceptive method, they are acting responsibly and taking control of their reproductive health. They should be treated with respect and dignity and should not be subjected to lectures and intimidation. We must guarantee women’s access to their legally prescribed medications because telling women to simply “go elsewhere” is not just an inconvenience, it is many times impossible. Pharmacists have a legal and ethical duty to protect the health of their patients. Pharmacies have a duty to dispense and have an ethical obligation not to endanger their patients’ health by withholding basic health care. The American Public Health Association states “When a health professional has prescribed contraception, the patient must be able to obtain the contraceptive in a timely manner at a licensed pharmacy, without interference from those pharmacists who have personal objections to contraception. Any delay caused by such interference can endanger the patient’s health by increasing the risk of unintended pregnancy or exacerbating the other medical conditions for which contraceptive are sometimes prescribed.” Birth control is basic health care for women. - 98 percent of women use contraception at some point during their lifetime.
- 43 million women of reproductive age are sexually active and do not want to become pregnant, but could become pregnant if they didn’t use a contraceptive method.
- In the United States, the average woman wants only two children and will spend five years of her life pregnant or trying to get pregnant and nearly three decades trying to avoid pregnancy. During these three decades, most women will use contraceptives to avoid getting pregnant.
Birth Control is not Abortion Contrary to the anti-birth control movement’s lies that birth control pills cause abortion, birth control pills act to prevent pregnancy, reducing the need for an abortion. According to the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists birth control pills only work before a pregnancy occurs and have no effect on an established pregnancy. Birth control is a safe legal way to prevent pregnancy and a fundamental component of a woman’s health care.
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