[img_assist|nid=364683|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=0|height=0]Faced with a looming re-election bid in 2014 and near-to-last place in job growth, Governor Walker promised us that from here on out he would "be focused like a laser on job growth."
With this laser-like focus, Gov. Walker and company have a promising lead in their search for jobs: Wisconsin women's vaginas! Of course, to actually find those jobs, you need a really long probe to really search for those jobs. They're in there somewhere and by golly the Wisconsin Republicans are going to find 'em!
If only I was joking: Yesterday, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald guaranteed the Wisconsin Right to Life Conference that requiring women to jump through yet another ridiculous hoop before they can an abortion is going to happen this legislative session. This is no ordinary hoop, however, this involves sticking a foot-long vaginal ultrasound probe up a women's vagina so she can see the fetus and hopefully be dissuaded from following through with an abortion.
The strategy is actually twofold: By making abortions more and more difficult to attain, they are hopeful that more women will simply decide the process is either too humiliating or too difficult and abandon the abortion effort all together. Afterall, abortions are spur-of-the-moment "impulse buys" and if women realllllly think about it and had a vaginal-probe they would change their mind or be dissuaded from doing it.
Nevermind if you've been raped and you want to get on with your life as soon as possible. Nevermind if your doctor has told you that you need to abandon your pregnancy because it would put your life or health in danger.
This is classic Republican "out of sight, out of mind" logic. The truth is that the states that have made abortion pretty much illegal by making them ridiculously inaccessable have seen a return to the bad old days of pre-Roe back-alley abortions. We forget that abortion was legal in the United States long before it was made illegal in many states in the late 1800s and that histororically women get abortions regardless of whether they are legal or illegal.
We also forget that there was a time in this country when one of the leading causes of death of young women was from botched back alley abortions.
We all hate abortions and no woman wants an abortion. The question is how do we best reduce the number of abortions? The answer is clear: abortions arise from unwanted pregnancies. And, of course, Republicans don't want to lift a finger to efforts that have proven to drastically reduce the numbers of unwanted pregnancies: Birth control and sex-ed in schools. (In fact, Scott Walker is so far into cuckoo land that he believes that the leading safegaurd against abortions-- birth control pills -- are themselves "abortificients" and should be banned as well!)
You know what else reduces unwanted pregnancies? When a woman has a good job and is financially secure and can afford to have a baby... but... ah, darnit... there's that pesky jobs issue again.