Scott Walker Is Just Too Extreme

Planned Parenthood has put up their third online video highlighting the hypocrisy and the sexism of the McCain/Palin Walker/Kleefisch ticket:



The accompanying press release reads:

Today Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin launched a third online video, this one featuring Wisconsin women who highlight Walker’s record of embracing policies that increase government interference in women’s health care decisions. “Whose Side is Scott Walker On?” shows everyday Wisconsin women responding to excerpts from Scott Walker’s ads, including the widely-criticized “Takeover” ad released this week. Walker and now Kleefisch have been caught repeatedly contradicting themselves with public statements that are inconsistent with their actions.

“Time and time again, Scott Walker voted to increase government interference in health care decisions that should be between my doctor and me,” said Jeanne Bissell Rudd, of Madison. “Yet the Scott Walker campaign has the audacity to put out an ad claiming the exact opposite. This hypocrisy needs to be exposed, and every Wisconsin woman needs to know the truth about where Scott Walker really stands on women’s health.”

During his time in the state Legislature, Scott Walker advocated for some of the most extreme anti-women’s health policies ever introduced. He wrote a bill that would allow pharmacists to deny women’s doctor-prescribed birth control. He sided with big insurance companies who refused to provide coverage of prescription birth control as well as maternity care, mammograms and cervical cancer screenings. Scott Walker received endorsement from Pro-Life Wisconsin by pledging to support legislation that would ban abortion in all cases, including for rape and incest victims.

In contrast, Tom Barrett supports women’s health. He believes women and their doctors, not politicians or the government, should make private, personal health care decisions. Tom Barrett also supports prevention-based family planning health care. Family planning health care includes lifesaving breast and cervical cancer screenings, birth control, and STD testing and treatment. Recent reporting by the Wall Street Journal estimates Wisconsin’s BadgerCare Family Planning program prevented 11,064 unplanned pregnancies at a savings of $139.1 million to the state. Analysis by the Guttmacher Institute, a respected national reproductive health care policy organization, estimates an investment in family planning saves taxpayers more than $4 for every $1 spent. Wisconsin law prohibits any public funding from paying for abortion care.

This is the third video in a series of planned online media and voter mobilization aimed at exposing the extreme views of Scott Walker and other candidates opposed to women’s basic health care access. By Election Day, PPAWI will have made hundreds of thousands of voter contacts to turn out the vote for women’s health champions through the use of mail, phone, door-to-door canvasses and e-advocacy.

“Scott Walker’s record on women’s health is a clear indisputable foreshadowing of what is to come if he becomes governor,” said Tanya Atkinson, Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin. “Walker's pursuit, acceptance and promotion of his endorsement by organizations that want to outlaw all birth control and abortions without exception is a continuation of Walker’s political work focused on ending women's health care access. Scott Walker is an extremist on women’s health and he has been his entire political career.”

For more information on how bad Walker's record is on women's rights, please click here.