Based on the numerous chronicles from our Wisconsinite friends, it's no secret that Scott Walker is a sleaze. But even I wasn't prepared to find out that while still serving in the state assembly, Walker supported bills that would have made it legal for pro-life doctors to mislead women about the condition of their fetuses in order to keep them from having abortions. While writing about this at Liberal America, I discovered that another favorite of ours also supported this--then-assemblyman and now-Congressman Glenn Grothman.
We all know that OB/GYNs are morally obligated to tell women about potentially serious disabilities that their fetuses may have. However, for years Wisconsin OB/GYNs have been legally obligated as well. If a doctor sat on this information, he could potentially be on the hook for the child's medical expenses or any damages that resulted from the child being born with a disability.
Well, that didn't sit well with some Republican lawmakers. In September 1997, a bill was introduced in the state assembly that would have given doctors immunity if "a woman did not undergo an abortion that she would have undergone" had she known about this disability. Among the 35 sponsors were two third-term assemblymen--Scott Walker and Glenn Grothman. Fortunately, this monstrosity died in 1998 without ever coming to the floor.
Several of the same people behind this misbegotten bill tried again in 2001. Among the sponsors--Scott Walker and Glenn Grothman. This bill actually made it out of the Assembly's family life committee--but died in 2002 without coming up for a vote.
There's no sugarcoating this. Walker and Grothman were so fixated in keeping women from having abortions that they were willing to allow doctors to violate their oath and lie to their patients. Can you imagine if this bill became law and a baby was born with a serious disability that the parents knew nothing about and didn't have time to prepare for it? Heinous doesn't even begin to describe this.
The real outrage is that this happened right around the time newsrooms were being cut to the bone--to the point they couldn't cover state government adequately. It makes you wonder--could Walker have even been elected Milwaukee County executive had his support of these monstrosities been known? Not bloody likely. And would Grothman be in Congress now if his support of this had been known? I'd like to think not--while WI-06 is definitely reddish, Grothman is enough of a wingnut that if the blue team made some effort, the red team would have had to pour money in there like it did to defend Michele Bachmann.
This whole episode is a lovely reminder of why I walked away from the pro-life movement. I was on the fence for a bit after having my fill of the pro-life movement's staggering disregard for privacy and basic human dignity. It took the Marlise Munoz affair to flip me back to being pro-choice--though I realize now that at heart, I was pro-choice all along. This is no different. The prospect that anyone could even think it's remotely okay to lie to patients in the name of keeping them from having abortions, to my mind, is the latest evidence of the "mainstream" pro-life movement's moral bankruptcy.