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OPINION & EDITORIAL

Compassionate care measure heartless

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Also by Charles Lim:

Blackwater security firm raises questions of sovereignty, authority (October 4, 2007)
Compassionate care measure heartless (September 19, 2007)
Breast feeding an unnatural target (September 5, 2007)
Despite failings, Bush right on water bill veto (November 14, 2007)
Fake press raises disturbing questions (October 31, 2007)

by Charles Lim

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

As reported Friday, the state of Wisconsin is again lit afire with the innumerous contingencies that come with the very personal, very controversial issue of abortion.

Riding the wave of last Tuesday's Assembly Judiciary and Ethics Committee meeting regarding hospitals’ undue pressure on patients to receive abortions comes news of the latest decision being birthed — pardon the pun — from the committee on the whole pro-life pro-choice debate. Passing six to four, the AJEC voted to amend the Compassionate Care for Rape Victims Bill, with all four Democratic representatives opposed, wanting to maintain the integrity of the original legislation, and all six Republican representatives in favor of the amendment to the bill. Wait, I take that back, amend isn't the right word here. To truly articulate the incredibly damning effect of the new vote, castrate would be a better choice. The majority of the AJEC castrated the compassionate care bill, removing any sort of legislative muscle and rendered it into a senseless pile of suggestions and wasted time.

Some of our readership may remember this bill as one of the most important and well-crafted pieces of state health care legislation in recent memory. First presented in March, the bill mandates that medical facilities across the state provide rape victims with factual and accurate information regarding emergency contraceptives and dispense the EC drug at the patient's request. Aiming to comply with American Medical Association regulations and present a victim with all of her options, the bill was overwhelmingly supported across the state with the population voting 80 percent in favor and cruised through a 27-6 passing in the Senate. In the strongest testament to the bill's universal appeal and importance was the lack of opposition by the Wisconsin Catholic Conference, Wisconsin Right to Life or the Wisconsin Catholic Conference of Bishops.

So what happened? The AJEC flew in the face of all this public support and obvious public desire for the bill and conceded to a political knee-jerk retraction of the bill's powers. The new amendment negates this landmark bill by allowing hospitals and health care providers to opt out of inclusion of it, and thus render the original bill a non-binding suggestion, and thus pointless. The strongest advocate of this crippling amendment was Rep. Mark Gundrum, R-New Berlin. This is the very same Mark Gundrum who spearheaded the AJEC's vote on the Coercive Abortion Prevention Act.

Don't take the context of that sentence as indication of my opposition of the CAPA, it's actually the contrary. I think that the distribution of accurate knowledge about abortion to women is paramount and taking actions to ensure women are not pressured into either side of the issue and thus clouding her options are commendable. The point of contention is that denying a patient's access to information on emergency contraceptives may not be as explicitly cruel as the coercion he fears pro-choicers advocate, but depriving the patient of the knowledge that the option of emergency contraception is available is just as large of an injustice.

As it stands, the whole situation is mired in hypocrisy. Mr. Gundrum has no problem championing the lofty idea that patients are not to be extorted into decisions by outside forces, but when the ball swings the other way into contradicting his pro-life rhetoric, he is quick to pander to politics rather than the patient's best interest, and that, Mr. Gundrum, is reprehensible.

Charles Lim (celim@wisc.edu) is a junior with no declared major.

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