Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) signed into law the bill requiring transvaginal ultrasounds and effectively closing down two Wisconsin abortion clinics in the dark of night. Well, not quite the dark of night but quietly on a post-holiday Friday.
Under the new Wisconsin law, any woman seeking an abortion would have to get an ultrasound. The technician would have to point out the fetus’ visible organs and external features. Abortion providers would have to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles to perform the procedures.[…]
Walker, a Republican, didn’t sign the bill in public, instead sending out a statement early Friday afternoon saying the bill was now law.
Planned Parenthood and the ACLU have filed suit and have asked for an emergency injunction. Two clinics, one in Appleton and one in Milwaukee, will be forced to close because the doctors there do not have admitting privileges to nearby hospitals and there is no time to obtain them. The closing of the Appleton clinic means that women in northern Wisconsin will have to travel hundreds of miles to Madison or Milwaukee for legal medical procedures..
Similar laws in Alabama and Mississippi were passed earlier this year and both have been stopped by federal injunction pending court cases.
Here is everything you need to know about why this bill was forced through the state legislature and rushed to the governor’s desk:
Barbara Lyons, executive director of Wisconsin Right to Life, praised Walker for following through on promises to sign the bill.
And here is everything you need to know about why the signing was not in public with lots of ceremonial pens handed out to smiling supporters:
In the RNC’s post-2012 “autopsy” in March they also pledged to increase outreach to women, as well as African-American, Asian, Hispanic and gay voters. President Obama won the female vote 55 percent to 44 percent last year.
This law is similar to the bill in Texas which will also be passed, is also unpopular, and will also go immediately from the governor’s desk to the courts.
The Republicans have decided that the most important issue facing Americans in 2013 is abortion. Here is a roundup of the recent legislation:
… the House of Representatives passed a bill banning abortion at 20 weeks, with no exception for severe fetal anomalies—anomalies that are often not detectable before 20 weeks. There’s been an explosion of anti-abortion legislation in the states, including a ban on abortion as early as 6 weeks in North Dakota. Ohio passed a budget bill defunding Planned Parenthood and imposing stringent new requirements that could close a third of the state’s abortion clinics. Despite Wendy Davis’s valiant, star-making stand in Texas, Republicans are close to ramming through legislation that will shutter most abortion clinics in that state. Late Tuesday night, North Carolina Republicans added anti-abortion regulations to a bill meant to prohibit Sharia law. If passed, it will leave only one clinic standing. Meanwhile, the Weekly Standard reports that Marco Rubio will spearhead a Senate version of the House’s 20-week abortion ban.
It doesn’t matter that polling shows that people already think there are enough restrictions on abortions (and that a majority still support Roe v Wade). It doesn’t matter that most people think that the focus should be on jobs and the economy (Scott Walker ran in 2010 on a promise to “get government out of the way” and add 250,000 jobs by the end of his first term … he is currently at 67,182 and Wisconsin job growth is 44th in the nation). What matters is this:
Sixty-three percent of Republicans believe abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. Among those who identify with the Tea Party movement, the number is 88 percent.
This is The Republican Base. These are who the promises had been made to in 2010 (92 anti-choice laws were passed by state legislatures in 2011) and in 2012, where the promises are being fulfilled by the anti-choice laws being passed in 2013. And those are the Republicans who vote in midterm elections which will also be when governors like Walker of Wisconsin and Kasich of Ohio will be up for re-election.
Republicans motivate their base by giving gifts to them in the form of onerous regulations denying women’s reproductive rights and voter id laws denying the franchise to Democratic leaning voters.
Let’s show them that in 2014, OUR BASE will be motivated by the Republican assault on women’s reproductive rights and, really, on everything that Democrats consider important.
We saw what happened in 2010 and more importantly, we saw what happens when we vote:
When We Vote, We Win.
(Crossposted from Views from North Central Blogistan)
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