State Assembly Passes Compassionate Care for Rape Victims Bill
Bipartisan group led by Pocan & Musser beats back three attempts to gut the bill Madison, WI – After months of stalling by anti-birth control Republican leadership, the state Assembly finally passed the Compassionate Care for Rape Victims bill (AB 377), 56 to 41, shortly before midnight yesterday. Eleven of 51 Republicans and 45 of 46 Democrats present voted in favor of the legislation, a narrower majority than in the Senate, which passed the measure 27 to six in May. “We are so grateful to all the sexual assault survivors and supporters of Compassionate Care, who refused to let the anti-birth control extremists block this bill,” said Kelda Helen Roys, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin. “Finally, all women in Wisconsin will be given compassionate care – including the chance to prevent pregnancy – in the horrible event that they are raped.” Anti-birth control legislators offered several amendments to gut or kill the bill, including two “refusal clauses” to let hospitals and hospital workers withhold information about and access to birth control, and a provision forcing doctors to notify parents of victims under 16 that the victim is seeking treatment – even if the parent is the perpetrator of sexual assault. The amendments were defeated 54-43, 54-43, and 53-44 respectively. NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin and its partners in the Compassionate Care for Rape Victims Coalition have been working to pass this bill for several sessions. This session alone, NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin and its supporters collected 4,638 petition signatures, held face-to-face conversations with 2,631 students statewide, contacted 3,126 voters through our Voices for Choice phone banks, submitted 89 letters to the editor, and spent hundreds of hours lobbying to pass the bill. The Compassionate Care bill addresses the fact that two-thirds of Wisconsin’s emergency rooms fail to provide comprehensive care to victims of sexual assault. The bill requires hospitals to conform to the American Medical Association’s standards of care by ensuring that rape victims receive information about and access to emergency birth control, which is highly effective at preventing pregnancy if taken soon after an assault. Emergency contraception is a higher dose of ordinary hormonal birth control; it has no effect if a woman is already pregnant. The bill must still pass one procedural hurdle in the Assembly before being returned to the Senate for final concurrence and sent to Governor Doyle for his signature. It is the first pro-choice bill in a decade to pass both houses of the Wisconsin State Legislature.
| 
