Earlier this week The Wisconsin Legislature passed Assembly Bill 377/Senate Bill 129 aka "The Compassionate Care for Rape Victims Bill" and will almost certainly be signed into Law by Governor Jim Doyle.
While the bill had bipartisan support, the votes for passage were not unaiminous. In fact, the loudest dissentors came from those representing my own District: Rep. Dan LeMaheu of Oostburg, Rep. Steve Kestell of Elkhart Lake, and Senators Joe Liebham of Sheboygan and Senator Glen Grothman. Not surprisingly, all are Republicans.
What this Bill does is mandate that all Wisconsin hospitals now have to provide information and offer Emergency Contraception for any rape victim who comes to the hospitals and requests it.
So why on God's green earth would anybody in their right mind oppose this?
More after the fold...
The politicians mentioned above all oppose birth control in any form and would cheerfully ban all contraceptives from the state, claiming they are 'sinful'. In reality, what they oppose is giving women any control over their bodies.
Each one of these politicians has a 'shining' record of opposing women's access not only to abortion providers but have actively worked to deny women access to contraceptives as well. Senator Liebham has on several occasions tried to cut Federal Funding to all Planned Parenthood clinics in Wisconsin, thereby attempting to close them.
Rep. Dan LeMaheu succeeded in preventing campus clinics from dispensing BC in every State University claiming that availibility of BC would 'promote promiscuity' among female college students.
These elected officials hate women so much that they would deny rape victims even the slightest chance to regain some control over their lives after enduring the most horriffic crime a woman could possibly face. They would sooner force a woman to re-live a crime over and over again for at least 9 months than to bend their hidebound ideology even a fraction of an inch. This is misogny at it's ugliest.
Rape is a crime of domination. Men use the threat of rape to control women through fear, and this bill would ease the fear just a little bit. Apparently these politicians hate the idea of women making decisions for themselves so much that they would sooner spit on rape victims than allow them EC.
It's unfortunatle that we needed to have this kind of legislation in the first place. Taking care of rape victims should be a no-brainer, but currently only 33% of Wisconsin hospitals voluntarily provide information about and offer EC to rape victims, so it became necessary to mandate that healthcare providers do this vital step in the woman's recovery.
These politicians and their 'pro-life' supporters 'justify' their 'NO' vote based on the 'possibility' that a rape victim 'might' become pregnant as a result and the outright LIE that EC is an abortificant. IT IS NOT!!!
Here I thought that I would be rid of moronic misogynistic politicians when James Sensenbrenner moved further south to Whitefish Bay. No such luck.