MADISON, WISCONSIN — The state of Wisconsin’s governor — Republican Scott Walker — wants to be the President of The United States, and as a sign that he is attempting to woo the support of his party’s hard right-wing conservative base, he has supported two laws, signing one into law already, that drastically reduce abortion access for women in his state and one that greatly expands concealed carry firearm laws as well as removes the mandatory 48-hour waiting period for guns in the Cheese State. Insiders on the Hill note that guns and abortion are two very easy topics to look very conservative on and garner some support from the evangelical and survivalist wing of the Republican Party.
The anti-abortion law would forbid any abortions taking place in Wisconsin after the 20th week of pregnancy, and there is no exception for rape or incest in the law. This means that under Wisconsin law it is entirely possible that a rape victim could be forced to carry her assailant’s baby to full-term. In a further twist to the law that many are calling “Draconian as fuck” the law allows a legal window for a man to sue a woman who aborts a pregnancy he helped conceived. Issues of proving paternity over a blastocyst aside, critics of the law call it a “naked attempt to ignore Roe vs. Wade as if it never happened.”
Both of these developments have Democrats in the state worried. “Governor Walker and his fellow Republicans in the state legislature have made it very clear that they do not want to govern for everyone in the state, but instead wish to pander to the most anti-progress among us,” Rep. Susan Traynor (D) told the media members at a recent press conference. “Sadly, a lot of these moves are being made simply to help Governor Walker in a national election. Republicans are selling out women and public safety to pander to people outside our state for votes in the primaries and then in next year’s election,” Traynor told the press.
“If the governor is going to send the message that to him guns are more important than a woman’s right to have autonomy over her own reproductive decisions, then perhaps it’s time for those of us who oppose these senseless laws to think way outside the box,” Traynor said, “as in, outside the abortion clinic altogether.” Traynor and three of her fellow Wisconsin Democrats were unveiling a new bill they are considering bringing to the Wisconsin State House floor that would take every existing abortion provider in the state and move them into the same spaces that are occupied by gun ranges, ammunition stores and gun retailers. The law would give both the gun ranges and the abortion clinics a chance to “go halvsies” on the rent, and would therefore have a dual impact of stimulating the Wisconsin economy, which is in need of much help as the state’s tax coffers are so thin, Walker has had to start skipping payments on his state’s debt to keep the government’s lights on.
Rep. Jared Fitzgerald (D) said at the press conference that “clearly Republicans in this state don’t value anything other than themselves and their guns” so he and his colleagues drafted a law that will “force them to consider other people’s feelings and needs.” Fitzgerald said, “Hey, I’m not anti-gun. I’m just also pro freedom, and no woman should be made to live in a state where they can’t exercise their own complete and total freedom, no matter what the emotional pleas from the other side of the aisle say.”
“Basically,” Rep. Becky Hanson (D) told reporters, “We trying to see if we can trick the Republicans into being decent human beings by pairing two things that are constitutionally protected — abortion and guns. Sometimes we get the feeling that Republicans really don’t accept that Roe v. Wade literally made abortion access an inalienable right up to the point of viability of the fetus. They can hem and haw all they want, but at the end of the day abortion access is every bit as fundamental to American liberty as firearm access is. If they don’t like that fact, they are welcome to find another country where they can use their religious beliefs to disenfranchise people, perhaps somewhere where Sharia Law is already in places,” Hanson said.
Traynor told the press that she and her fellow Democrats wouldn’t have to resort to such wild tactics “if the Republicans would stop pretending as if Planned Parenthood goes door to door aborting babies. They, and so many other low-cost or free clinics, provide vital health care screening services. They provide basic reproductive health services for the poor. These are things that they do in far greater numbers than abortions, but let’s not forget — abortion is a constitutional right. They can scream about it all they want, but until the Supreme Court overturns Roe, they are hypocritically defending one constitutional right — guns — and ignoring another — abortion.”
It’s unclear when Traynor and her colleagues will introduce the bill, but they said they are not going to stop fighting the new laws, regardless of whether their law comes to the floor for a vote. “Of course this is a stunt play for the press,” Fitzgerald told reporters. “But sometimes you have to do things to shake up your opponent, and to show the public just how insane they have become. So maybe, if we put abortion clinics in gun shops, Republicans will finally make the connection in their heads that guns and abortion are fully-protected constitutional rights and that they can’t defend either on constitutional grounds without acknowledging that both are protected.”
“But we wont hold our breaths for that connection to be made,” Hanson quickly added.
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