Scott Walker: Women Mostly Worry about Rape Pregnancies 'In the Initial Months'
For Immediate Release: June 3, 2015
Scott Walker’s insulting comments that women mostly worry about pregnancy from rape “in the initial months” is particularly insulting given that he opposes all abortion, even in cases of rape and incest, and when he was running for governor said that he’d sign legislation that would allow pharmacists to deny women access to birth control, including emergency contraception.
Statement from Cecile Richards, President, Planned Parenthood Action Fund:
"Scott Walker seems to be making crass and insulting remarks on a daily basis about abortion. It's impossible to understand why Scott Walker thinks that being pregnant as the result of rape or incest gets easier after a couple of months, but what's crystal clear is that he has no regard or respect for women's health.
“This is a remarkably extreme position that the vast majority of Americans, from all political backgrounds, oppose. As governor, Scott Walker has signed four laws restricting access to safe and legal abortion, and he blocked Planned Parenthood from receiving state funds to provide lifesaving cancer screenings and other health care to low-income women in Wisconsin. The more America learns about Scott Walker’s agenda for women, the clearer it is that he is far outside the mainstream.”
Additional background on Wisconsin’s 20-week ban: The bill, introduced by Senator Mary Lazich, a longtime advocate for making all abortion illegal in Wisconsin, prohibits a woman from ending her pregnancy at 20 weeks and could threaten doctors who perform the procedure with a Class I felony and put doctors in prison. The bill does not include any exceptions for when there are significant risks to a woman’s health, if a woman is the survivor of rape or incest or if the pregnancy has severe fetal anomalies.
Abortion is a deeply personal and often complex medical decision that should be left to a woman and her family with the counsel of her doctor. Governor Walker promised to sign this ban on abortion even before the bill was introduced.
Broader Agenda: What’s happened in Wisconsin could happen in all 50 states if Scott Walker is elected president. Scott Walker has said he wants to ban abortion and has already signed four laws that threaten a woman’s ability to make her own health care decisions about her pregnancy, including laws that threaten doctors who perform abortions with felony charges for violating the law, require physicians to have admitting privileges at a local hospital, and block women from getting private insurance coverage for abortion. Not only has Scott Walker made Wisconsin one of the most difficult states to access safe and legal abortion, he also ended Planned Parenthood’s 16-year contract with the state to provide breast and cervical cancer screenings under the state’s well-woman program and forced the closure of five rural Planned Parenthood health centers, resulting in the disruption and loss of over 18,800 health care services for approximately 3,100 patients including lifesaving cancer screenings, breast exams, birth control, well-woman exams, pregnancy tests, STD testing and treatment, HIV screening, and referrals to a network of community resources.
If you have any questions, please contact the Planned Parenthood Action Fund media line at [email protected].