Some one once quipped, “Common sense is the least common of all senses.” It seems our state legislature is working hard to prove the truth of this adage as it closes out this current legislative session.

Some bills really are mostly matters of common sense. We don’t need highly paid lobbyists or high-profile attorneys or high-sounding pontificators to interpret these bills. What we need most is common sense.

For example, if a bill would outlaw a procedure that kills a partially born infant, if nothing else, common sense should tell us this is a good bill. After all, it doesn’t take rocket scientists to tell us murdering our children is wrong. That ought to be common sense.

Developmentally challenged people have viewed ultrasound pictures of pre-born children and exclaimed, “Look! A baby!” Surely our legislators should be able to use their common sense and support a bill that preserves the life of a baby who is completely delivered except its head. Morality aside, shouldn’t common sense tell you to save that life, not destroy it?

We’ll likely see soon, at least in the Assembly, if we have a majority of legislators with common sense when they vote on Assembly Bill 710, which would conform Wisconsin’s partial-birth abortion law to the federal ban that the US Supreme Court last year ruled was constitutional and enforceable.

The legislators’ common sense will again be tested when they consider Senate Bill 460 and its Assembly companion Assembly Bill 852. Sen. Glen Grothman (R-West Bend) in conjunction with Rep. Daniel LeMahieu (R-Cascade) authored these common sense bills that protect the rights of parents and the health of minor girls.

These bills deal with Wisconsin’s Family Planning Medicaid Waiver program which provides free so-called “reproductive health care” to women between the ages of 15 and 44 who make less than 200% of the federal poverty level, or $20,420 annually. Nonsensically, for minors, parental income is not included in that percentage. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know any 15, 16 or 17 year old girls making $20,000+ a year. So, what this means is that essentially any 15, 16 or 17 year-old Wisconsin girl can receive free “reproductive health care” without her parents’ knowledge or consent.

Again proving that common sense is the least common of all senses, the proponents of the current Family Planning Medicaid Waiver program seem to be promoting promiscuity among minors, in spite of the fact that such behavior is a felony in Wisconsin for anyone under 16 years of age. Common sense would say, protect the minors; punish the felons. But no, this program lets the felons off the hook, while the girl’s parents, her foremost protectors, are not even given the opportunity to learn about the issue so they can try to protect her.

Enter, however, some common sense. Senator Grothman and Representative LeMahieu’s bills, among other things, remove minors from the Family Planning program, changing the age-range to 18-44 years old. This is a common sense move. You don’t have to be a member of Mensa to know that parents of a minor child need to be involved in any health-care issue concerning their child and that we shouldn’t be doing anything that promotes promiscuity among teens 15 to 17 years old.

Yes, this would seem to be common sense. However, this isn’t the first time the legislature has had the opportunity to pass such a bill. Twice before our state legislators could have exercised their common sense and passed a very similar bill—but they didn’t. Republicans and Democrats alike couldn’t figure it out, proving yet one more time that, as Will Rogers said, “Common sense ain’t common.” Perhaps on this third try on this common sense issue, the legislature will get it right.

A good dose of common sense would be a great prescription for our state legislature right now. Here’s hoping these final days of this legislative session don’t prove Henry Louis Mencken right when he said, “It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.”

For Wisconsin Family Council, I’m Julaine Appling, reminding you the Prophet Hosea said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”