Agency History

	1960 FDA approves the birth control pill. '60s Dr. Jerome Gundersen suggests to lifelong friend Sally Salisbury we need a family planning clinic in La Crosse. 1965 The Supreme Court recognizes the constitutional right of privacy, securing the right of married women to use contraception. '60s-70s Dr. Steven Webster and Diana Gorgos provide STD education in schools.
	1970 Title X of Public Service Act provides affordable access to family planning services regardless of income. 1972 The La Crosse Family Planning Center opens an office in La Crosse and serves 1,500 clients. 1976 Wisconsin is the last state to allow unmarried women prescriptions for contraception. 1979 Coulee Region Family Planning Center hires its first nurse practitioner and begins providing services directly. Administrative services move from Westby to La Crosse.
	1981 Coulee Region Family Planning Center changes from a state-funded clinic to a Federally funded clinic. 1983 Coulee Region Family Planning Center moves to State Street in downtown La Crosse.
	1991 Coulee Region Family Planning Center becomes Options in Reproductive Care, Inc. and has a permanent home on 1201 Caledonia St. 1993 Options in Reproductive Care, Inc. collaborates with CESA #4 and Lutheran Hospital Teen Health Services to develop the Family Guided Sexuality Handbook. In 2009, Options Clinic produced the handbook entirely on its own. 1995 Options Clinic becomes an affiliate of Gundersen Lutheran.
	2006 Options Clinic takes on a $450,000 remodeling project of its clinic and laboratory facilities.
Options Clinic will be widely recognized and supported for our excellence in normalizing sexuality through sexual healthcare, education and prevention services and our commitment to a lifetime of wellness for all.

Times have changed. In fact, lots of things have changed since we opened our doors as the Coulee Region Family Planning Center in 1972. But what hasn’t changed is the need for what we do—provide affordable, accessible and available reproductive health care to those who need it most.

We’ve always been the place where women could come to become all that they want to be; where they can learn how to choose the time in their lives when they can make children a priority. They tell us their most intimate stories, and those stories have shaped our history.

Giving women a safe place to share those stories has a price, and that price grows as quickly as we have. Although we’re grateful for the public support we receive, it is not enough. Each of our valued clients costs us more each year to care for, whether its birth control, STI testing or a wellness exam.

We want to keep hearing these stories, but we’re going to need your help to write the next chapters.

Your help was essential yesterday, and vital now and forever.