Scott Walker says Planned Parenthood is "controversial" so he cuts off access to breast cancer care for Wisconsin women
| Heather H. | 5
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As if Scott Walker weren’t unpopular enough (over 500,000 WI voters have signed his recall petition in about a month), now he’s literally trying to eliminate cancer care coordination and screenings at Planned Parenthood health centers.
Started under former Governor Tommy Thompson, a Republican, in 1995, the Wisconsin Well Women Program (WWWP) is meant to ensure underinsured women at risk for breast or cervical cancer receive timely access to screenings and care. For 16 years, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin served as the WI Well Woman Program coordinator in four Wisconsin counties.
Through the program, PPWI enrolls qualifying women, notifies them of appointments and answers questions, coordinates follow-up care for abnormal results, and enrolls them in the Well Woman Medicaid Program if cervical or breast cancer is detected. In 2010, 1,260 women in the four counties were served by Planned Parenthood WWWP coordinators.
Without notice, Scott Walker is ending Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin’s Well Woman contract December 31. He has no answers about where women in these counties can get cancer care instead. All he will offer is his personal opinion that Planned Parenthood is “controversial.” Rick Ungar at Forbes points out just how callous this is.
“No doubt, the women who will be denied access in the four counties where no such screening will be available, can comfort themselves in the knowledge that, while they may die of breast or cervical cancer, at least they won’t have to expose themselves to some perceived controversy over the local Planned Parenthood treatment facility.”
Meanwhile, women like Carol Lechner are sucked into Scott Walker’s game that puts his personal political agenda above the needs of ordinary Wisconsinites.
A week ago today, Carol had a lumpectomy— treatment for breast cancer that is expected to save her life. Enrolled in the program at Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, this care was provided to Carole at no cost and coordinated by PPWI’s Wisconsin Well Woman Program staff.
As a dyed-in-the-wool, Packer stock-owning Wisconsinite who spent the better part of last winter marching alongside firefighters, public school teachers and farmers on bitter cold February days and nights against Scott Walker’s anti-working families agenda, I can tell you there are no two words that spark more controversy in the Badger State these days than the words, “Scott Walker.” So Scott Walker’s own definition of “controversial” is pretty fascinating to me.
Throughout his entire political career, Scott Walker has aligned himself with the most extreme anti-women’s health groups and politicians in the state — and at every opportunity, their most extreme legislative pet projects became his personal crusade.
Scott Walker is the first governor in recent memory endorsed by Pro-Life Wisconsin, an extreme anti birth control group pushing for a Mississippi-style, “personhood” amendment in Wisconsin. He has pushed Pro-Life Wisconsin’s anti-women’s health legislative agenda his entire career, like a bill to allow pharmacists to deny women their birth control prescriptions. This was one of his hallmark issues when he was a state Representative . And in his state budget this year, Scott Walker kicked Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin health centers out of the state family planning program.
Ten years ago, it was allowing pharmacists to refuse to fill women’s birth control prescriptions. And today, it’s kicking one of the state’s largest women’s health providers out of women’s health programs they play a key role in.
The bottom line: undermining access to breast cancer screenings is a bridge too far. The lives and health of uninsured women like Carol hang in the balance.
