HIDDEN GLEN, IOWA — In 2012 a term emerged from America’s left side of the political spectrum for what they deemed the extreme, anti-feminine agenda being pushed the country’s Republicans in power. The “War on Women” took center stage during one of the presidential debates when Mitt Romney famously quipped that he couldn’t possibly be a misogynist because he was brought “binders full of women” to fill government positions when he was a Massachusetts governor. The GOP’s detractors are also quick to point out the glut of bills passed in state legislatures — as well as by the House of Representatives — aimed at severely limiting a woman’s access to abortion and other reproductive health services, and one such bill in Wisconsin has been making headlines for its support from the state’s governor and presumptive 016 presidential candidate Scott Walker and for its total lack of exceptions for rape and incest victims.
The bill, which Walker says he would sign if it made it to his desk, would not allow any abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy, and as it is written now there are no exceptions for women who were raped or are victims of incest and became pregnant as a result. But even this very harsh restriction isn’t so much news these days; it’s the provision in the bill that allows men to sue women who abort pregnancies that they help conceive for “emotional damage” that has fired up tensions in the state.
While speaking at a recent rally in Hidden Glen, Iowa, Walker told the assembled crowd that he will sign the bill because “every life is sacred, even those that are so undeveloped that they literally would expire outside their host organism” and that “each and every drop of semen contains human life and must be protected.” Walker said he wants men to be “allowed to be compensated for the horror of having a woman’s decision what to do with her body taken away from him” and that “when men sue a woman for making a private, personal decision it’s going to send a clear message that in America, the rights of the parasite take precedence over the host because ‘feels.'”
After the rally, reporters were anxious to ask Walker more about this law, and the provision about litigation. One reporter asked Walker how the courts will be able to verify that the aborted fetus was in fact the offspring of the man bringing charges. “Easy, media member,” Walker said, “we’ll add an amendment to the bill that says all aborted fetuses must be taken to our labs, where DNA samples from the the mother, the plaintiff, and the fetus will be compared to determine paternity. Because nothing says ‘small government’ like being inside your doctor’s operating room, rushing your aborted fetus to a lab, and then allowing someone to sue you if they are a religious sycophant and want to make your life even more miserable and stress-filled than it was when you were contemplating how to handle the unwanted pregnancy in the first place.”
A reporter from The Winston Times Gazette and Brownie Recipe Compendium asked Walker if rapists and incest perpetrators would be excluded from being allowed to sue over an abortion. “Why would I do that? Life is life,” Walker said. “Just because a man chooses to bring life into this world by way of either raping a stranger or a family member, who are we to judge? Life is life, I always say.” A follow-up question from another reporter asked message Walker was trying to send to rape and incest victims by basically saying to them that they have to carry their attackers’ pregnancies to full term or face possible financial consequences, enforced by the government.
“What message am I sending rape and incest victims,” Walker asked rhetorically. “Obviously, I couldn’t care less about rape and incest victims,” said Walker, adding an emphatic, “Doy!” The Wisconsin Republican insists though that he doesn’t “disregard rape and incest victims out of spite or anger, just out of political expediency and self-preservation.” Walker said that he has “never been raped or the victim of incest, and no one I’ve ever known has been raped or been the victim of incest, clearly, because otherwise no matter what my feelings on abortion, I wouldn’t champion a position that re-victimizes victims, and I damn-sure wouldn’t support a law wherein they could be victimized a third time in a civil penalties trial, would I?”
Walker — the 2016 GOP front runner depending on the poll — summarized his position as he left the rally. “Look, the bottom line is that as a Republican running for president in 2015 I have to say shit that as a Republican in 1995 would get me tossed off the ticket. I have to rev up our dying base. I have to convince people I’m the most regressive, I’m the most anti-female, I’m the most insensitive to anything other than the talking points of the farthest fringes of our party. So that’s why I don’t care about rape and incest victims — I can’t be sure if they’re going to vote for me. But I know for a fact the people I convince of my apathy toward rape and incest victims will vote for me. So see? It’s all about votes.
Not that I’m a totally cynical prick who will sacrifice his human decency for a shot at the brass ring.”
