A Voter’s Guide to Asking Candidates Questions

Relating to Reproductive Choice & Health Care

Do your area candidates support access to reproductive health care?

Call their campaign office or ask a question publicly at a candidate appearance in your area.

1. Right to Choose

Do you support the position that all women should have the right to obtain a medically safe, legal abortion under the standards set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision?

2. Right to contraception

A woman who wants two children will spend approximately thirty years of her life seeking to avoid pregnancy. Contraception is a basic component of women’s health care, yet opponents of contraception want to allow pharmacists and other health care workers to refuse to provide birth control and impose their own beliefs on others. Do you support a woman’s right to contraception without restrictions?

3. Family Planning Programs

Wisconsin’s family planning health centers serve more than 100,000 Wisconsin women each year—many of whom are low-income and have inadequate or no health insurance. Services offered at family planning health centers include: annual exams; contraceptive services; breast and cervical cancer screens; testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections; safer sex counseling; and pregnancy counseling. Do you support access to family planning services and public funding for family planning?

4. Insurance Coverage for Contraceptives

Nearly half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended, and nearly half of those unintended pregnancies end in abortion. Contraceptives have a proven track record of enhancing the health of women and children, preventing unintended pregnancy, and reducing the need for abortion. Although contraception is basic health care for women, only a small fraction of Wisconsin health plans include this vital coverage. The Wisconsin Attorney General has concluded that employers cannot legally refuse to provide contraceptive coverage when other prescription drug benefits are offered. Do you support requiring employers to cover all FDA approved prescription contraceptives in the same way they cover other prescription drugs?

5. Compassionate Care for Rape Victims

Emergency contraception is simply a high dose combination of oral contraceptives that, if taken within 120 hours of unprotected sex, can safely prevent a pregnancy from occurring. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists estimates that expanded access to emergency contraception could reduce the unintended pregnancy rate by half. Do you support efforts to increase access to emergency contraception, such as requiring hospital emergency rooms to give rape victims information and access to emergency contraception to prevent pregnancy after an assault?

6. Comprehensive, Medically-Accurate Sex Education

Research shows that responsible, age-appropriate, medically accurate sex education works to delay onset of sexual activity and promote responsible decision-making. Polls show that 85% of Americans support sex education that includes information about abstinence, contraception, and disease prevention. Do you support the teaching of comprehensive, age-appropriate, medically accurate sex education, including information about both abstinence and contraception, in public schools?

Please let Planned Parenthood know how the candidates responded to your questions

by emailing us at paffairs@ppwi.org. Thanks!