By Katie Halper • @kthalps • 12 years ago

Governor Walker repeals equal pay, bans abortion coverage, mandates abstinence

Wisconsin Governor (R-surprise!) Scott Walker is a true Renaissance Man of Asshatery. He must be commended for his hard work, consistency and brazen bigotry in targeting not just workers‘ rights, not just reproductive rights, but even pay equity! Thursday, Walker passed over 50 bills   but announced them Friday afternoon before the holiday weekend, so they would get less attention. Among the bills was

  1. a bill banning abortion coverage in policies obtained through a health insurance exchange, which will be created in 2014.
  2. a bill requiring doctors to consult and examine a woman seeking abortion privately, away from her friends and family, and to make sure she isn’t being pressured into having an abortion.
  3. a bill requiring sex-ed teachers to stress abstinence as the only way to prevent STDs and pregnancy. The bill also says teachers don’t have to address contraception at all. (How nice of the bill!)

And just in case anyone wants to pretend these bills are about religious liberty and not about reproductive rights or public health, Walker is doing his best to enshrine workplace discrimination and unequal pay! Michelle Goldberg sums it up at The Daily Beast:

On Thursday, with little fanfare, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker signed a bill repealing the state’s 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act, which allowed victims of workplace discrimination to seek damages in state courts. In doing so, he demonstrated that our political battles over women’s rights aren’t just about sex and reproduction—they extend to every aspect of women’s lives.

Thank you, Scott Walker, for making your sexism so blatant. It makes our jobs in calling out the war on women that much easier. Thank god for small favors!

nyc

Born and raised on the mean streets of New York City’s Upper West Side, Katie Halper is a comic, writer, blogger, satirist and filmmaker based in New York. Katie graduated from The Dalton School (where she teaches history) and Wesleyan University (where she learned that labels are for jars.) A director of Living Liberally and co-founder/performer in Laughing Liberally, Katie has performed at Town Hall, Symphony Space, The Culture Project, D.C. Comedy Festival, all five Netroots Nations, and The Nation Magazine Cruise, where she made Howard Dean laugh! and has appeared with Lizz Winstead, Markos Moulitsas, The Yes Men, Cynthia Nixon and Jim Hightower. Her writing and videos have appeared in The New York Times, Comedy Central, The Nation Magazine, Gawker, Nerve, Jezebel, the Huffington Post, Alternet and Katie has been featured in/on NY Magazine, LA Times, In These Times, Gawker,Jezebel, MSNBC, Air America, GritTV, the Alan Colmes Show, Sirius radio (which hung up on her once) and the National Review, which called Katie “cute and some what brainy.” Katie co-produced Tim Robbins’s film Embedded, (Venice Film Festival, Sundance Channel); Estela Bravo’s Free to Fly (Havana Film Festival, LA Latino Film Festival); was outreach director for The Take, Naomi Klein/Avi Lewis documentary about Argentine workers (Toronto & Venice Film Festivals, Film Forum); co-directed New Yorkers Remember the Spanish Civil War, a video for Museum of the City of NY exhibit, and wrote/directed viral satiric videos including Jews/ Women/ Gays for McCain.

Katie is a writer, comedian, filmmaker, and New Yorker.

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