A new program in Wisconsin aims to give women ages 15-44, including students, access to free birth control.

The Medicaid program, called the Family Planning Waiver, is a multi-million dollar federal aid package to expand access to reproductive health care to almost 50,000 low-income Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, 10 percent of women aged 15-44 have income under the federal poverty level, and 12 percent do not have private health insurance or Medicaid.

The waiver intends to gives eligible women free access to contraceptive supplies such as birth control pills, patches, Depo-Provera shots, and condoms. It also provides pap and pelvic exams, STD testing, diagnosis and treatment.

Lon Newman, vice president of the Wisconsin Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, said many women are using less effective birth control methods because of cost.

The Family Planning Waiver also provides emergency contraceptives, also known as the morning-after pill.

“If [a woman] is the victim of sexual assault, she needs to get in as quickly as possible,” Newman said.

The morning-after pill can be taken up to five days after having sex. However, it is more effective the sooner it is taken. By ordering on-line, Family Health and Planning Services can also provide students with an emergency contraceptive kit.

“They have hopes, aspirations and dreams,” Newman said. “They are women who don’t need an unwanted pregnancy.”

Students receive the benefits of the waiver, regardless of their parent’s income, even if they are living with their parents. University Health Services has not offered the free services of the waiver yet.

“With this program, [women] should be able to get a birth control method they prefer, which should decrease the rate of unintended pregnancies,” Newman said.

The waiver may greatly help women who fall between the cracks of those who have enough money to be privately insured, and those who are poor enough to receive aid from the government.

However, the Family Planning Waiver may get overturned.

The Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules, composed of five senators and five state representatives, is looking to pass a bill to amend the waiver. Sen. Joe Leibham, R-Sheboygan, is co-chairman of the committee, and said the committee is trying to include parental consent as one of the requirements of the waiver.

“We don’t want to put up any roadblocks in parental involvement in the lives of their teenage daughters,” Leibham said.

Some have claimed the committee’s bill would actually end all the benefits provided by the waiver.

Lisa Boyce, vice president of Public Affairs for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, said in a press release that Leibham is out of touch with the health care needs of the community he represents.

“To suspend a program that will increase access to contraception and improve efforts to reduce unintended pregnancy, cancer and sexually transmitted infections for thousands of low income women in our state based on the narrow belief that contraceptives are ineffective and immoral, is a troubling indicator of the extreme policies we are facing with the anti-birth control majority in the Legislature,” Boyce said.

The United States is among the industrial world’s leaders in unintended pregnancy and teenage pregnancy rates. In Wisconsin, 15 percent of all pregnancies each year result in abortions, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a Washington DC based research organization devoted to reproductive health care rights.