[media-credit name=’MEGHAN CONLIN/Herald photo’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]A bill proposing to limit contraceptive access to minors prompted a reproductive rights battle at the state Capitol Tuesday.

Pro-choice and pro-life advocates faced off at a joint Senate and Assembly committee hearing, in which citizens from across the state delivered hours of testimony questioning whether female minors should be allowed access to birth control without parental consent.

Authored by state Sen. Glenn Grothman, R-West Bend, Senate Bill 552 aims to limit the family planning services provided to minors below a certain income by increasing the current minimum age requirement from 15 to 18 years.

Rep. Mark Gundrum, R-New Berlin, the bill's lead Assembly sponsor, expressed concern regarding the current Family Planning Waiver program's tendency to bypass parental involvement.

"[SB 552] plain and simply is about the right of parents being involved in the health care decisions of their minor children," he said. "If you believe strangers out there … should be able to be prescribing and giving out medication to minor girls, then you're not going to be in favor of this legislation."

Bill opponents, however, argued that while family communication is preferred, such involvement is not always realistic.

"The bottom line is that some teens choose to have sex and for those teens are we going to turn them away?" Planned Parent Advocates of Wisconsin Political Director Chris Taylor said.

Taylor added that while bill backers contend the FPW promotes teenage promiscuity, such claims amount to a "sexist" and "patriarchal" argument unsupported by any verifiable data.

While many Republicans and pro-life advocates maintain the FPW is poor public policy, many others point to the service as an invaluable resource for young women.

PPAWI CEO Jim Stewart testified against the legislation, calling the FPW — which provides contraception, sexually transmitted infection treatment and cancer screenings — an important measure to safeguard women's health.

"We ask that you support preserving [the FPW] program so that a significant percentage of low-income Wisconsin women and teens will continue to have access to confidential health care services," Stewart said. "Their lives and welfare depend on it."

As a number of other reproductive rights advocates shared similar sentiments, Wisconsin Right to Life challenged PPAWI's motives.

"Given that abortion is … extremely lucrative, there should be concern regarding zealous family planning employees that exert pressure on these pregnant minor girls into making a decision to have an abortion," WRTL Legislative Director Susan Armacost said, directly referring to PPAWI.

However, according to the PPAWI, the organization does not refer women to any abortion clinic, but rather provides them with necessary information explaining prenatal, pregnancy and abortion care.

But WRTL, along with Pro-Life Wisconsin, raised concerns over the cost of these reproductive services, charging taxpayers should not be responsible for girls' birth control.

"Providing free taxpayer-funded birth control to 15-year-old girls behind parents' backs is simply irresponsible public policy," Pro-Life Wisconsin Legislative Affairs Director Matt Sande said.

But bill opponents argue a greater threat would lie in denying family planning services to all women covered under the FPW program, not simply the minors targeted by the legislation.

According to Taylor, the bill puts the state's entire FPW program in jeopardy, as the waiver is part of a federal agreement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to provide service for low-income women age 15 to 44.

"There is no federal guarantee that Wisconsin will continue to receive this funding if 15-to 17-year-olds are no longer eligible for the waiver," said Coral Choinski, a UW grad student and Wisconsin Council on Children and Families representative.

The bill is expected to go into an executive committee session soon, in which it must be approved before being receiving full legislative consideration.