Power

Wisconsin Recall Election to Be about Reproductive Health… Again

When Scott Walker ran for governor, his supporters made the race about reproductive rights.  Now it looks like they are ready to do it again. 

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Anti-choice activists have already made it clear that they are ready to frame the Wisconsin recall election as a battle against reproductive rights. With Wisconsin Right to Life sounding the alarm over all of the progress they’ve made in the last two years and how it could be defeated if Governor Scott Walker is unseated, it became obvious that birth control and abortion would become an election day rallying cry.

Since then, the Susan B. Anthony List has endorsed Walker’s Lieutenant Governor, Rebecca Kleefisch, showing that even the national powers want to get involved in this pivotal, bellweather election.

Now, the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard is mixing it up as well.  Accusing likely Democratic candidate Tom Barrett of being too extreme when it comes to abortion support. John McCormack urges Wisconsinites to remember that Barrett supports “taxpayer funding of abortion” as a congressman, and that his challenger, Kathleen Falk, is supported by EMILY’s List. “The two leading Democratic candidates, Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett and Dane county executive Kathleen Falk, have staked out deeply unpopular positions on the issue of abortion that could prove toxic in the general election,” he writes. “A national Quinnipiac poll taken during the Obamacare debate found that 72 percent of Americans oppose public funding of abortion.”

Local anti-choice groups are obviously grateful for the national assist. Pro-life Wisconsin, a feverent backer of Gov. Walker, links to the story, writing:

Barrett’s pro-abortion view should come as no surprise — in July 2010, Cecile Richards headlined three Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin fundraisers for Barrett.

Barrett is a so-called practicing Catholic and was recently given a forum in the Milwaukee Catholic Herald.

What a pro-abortion race to the bottom.

If all of this sounds a touch familiar, it should. This is merely a repeat of the 2010 gubernatorial race when Walker and Barrett ran against each other the first time.