#WalkerAt20: Failing to Protect Women’s Health

MADISON, Wis. — In his twenty years in office, Scott Walker has amassed a truly astounding record of failure. To commemorate the looming anniversary of his first election to office, One Wisconsin Now is highlighting a different and depressing failure of Gov. Walker every day, for twenty days. In today’s installment, as the Republican controlled legislature is poised to adopt even more radical, right-wing legislation attacking women’s health care, the lowlights of Gov. Walker’s abysmal record on the issue are up.

One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross commented, “When given the choice between protecting women’s access to safe and legal health care services or pandering to the most extreme right-wing of the Republican Party, Scott Walker has sided with the extremists over Wisconsin women every time.”

Walker’s record of failing to protect women’s health include:

• Funding cuts Gov. Walker signed into law as part of his 2011 state budget directly resulted in the closure of 4 Planned Parenthood Clinics in Wisconsin. As a result, thousands of women lost convenient access to basic health care services in rural Wisconsin. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 2/18/2013]
• As part of his first budget after becoming governor, Scott Walker tried to repeal the contraceptive equity law that required insurance companies to provide coverage for contraception and related services. [LFB, Comparative Summary of Budget Recommendations, August 2011]
• Scott Walker has been endorsed as “100% pro-life” by an extreme, right-wing organization that seeks to outlaw birth control and supports a so-called “personhood” amendment to the state constitution that is so extreme it would ban all abortions, even to save the life of the mother, and could subject women who have suffered miscarriages to police investigations. [Pro-Life Wisconsin, 2010 Candidate Questionnaire, 9/15/2010]
• As Gov. Walker courts extremists nationwide in pursuit of his presidential ambitions he was praised by Bob Vander Plaats, president of the Iowa based right-wing organization, The Family Leader who said he is, “right on a lot of issues…” . Vander Plaats’ agenda includes more discrimination against gay people and outlawing of abortion, even in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. [The Hill, 5/27/2013]

One Wisconsin Now is commemorating over 20 days, the failings, scandals and imbroglios of Gov. Scott Walker’s 20-years in elected office. Gov. Walker, who was first elected to the State Assembly on June 29, 1993, has spent virtually no time in the private sector and has enjoyed nearly half his life on the taxpayers’ dime, including receiving well over $1 million in salary alone, as well as health care benefits for he and his family.

Previous information compiled by One Wisconsin Now about Scott Walker’s failure as Milwaukee County Executive is available at www.ScottWalkerFailureFiles.com, his first disastrous year as Governor is available at www.WalkerFailure.com and the millionaires and billionaires behind it all at http://pinterest.com/onewisconsinnow/who-s-buying-gov-scott-walkert