A Wisconsin with 'Governor' Green? Look Out, Ladies!
Green’s extreme voting record attacks freedom, privacy, and personal responsibility for women
Madison, WI – Today NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin held a press conference to explore what Wisconsin would look like for women if Republican candidate Mark Green were governor.
Supporters of women’s reproductive rights gathered on the capitol steps to express fear and concern about what Green would do to women’s rights, particularly around birth control and the right to choose.
Several speakers addressed the crowd, expressing concern about Green’s votes to block birth control access, deprive rape victims of information about emergency contraception (the ‘morning-after pill’), and criminalize all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest.
“A Governor Green would insert government and politicians into the personal and private decision of whether to have an abortion,” said Kelda Helen Roys, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin. “Wisconsinites value reproductive rights – yet Mark Green has voted time and again to deprive us of our freedom, privacy, liberty, and the personal responsibility that comes with them.”
“If Mark Green were governor, we would be revictimized, having to fight for a prescription for emergency contraception, at a time when it is almost impossible to even speak, let alone speak up,” said Carousel Bayrd, a sexual assault survivor and new mother. “If Mark Green had his way, the most traumatic and terrifying moment in my life would have been one of isolation and more terror, not having access to the compassionate emergency care recommended by the American Medical Association.
“A survivor like me could have to fight to get information about emergency contraception, fight to get a prescription, fight to not have a pharmacist take it away. Mark Green’s Wisconsin is not a Wisconsin that anyone should have to live in. And I will work to ensure that my seven-month old daughter will not have to grow up in such a state.
UW honor student Libby Belden also spoke about access to contraception. “If Mark Green were Governor, he would try to make it more difficult for me to be responsible. Mark Green co-authored legislation to let pharmacists deny birth control to women. Mark Green took over $70,000 from the insurance industry, and then voted to let them exclude birth control from coverage – even though they cover Viagra and other prescription drugs.”
“The bottom line is that Mark Green is too extreme – he sides with right-wing extremists in politicizing the abortion issue, letting pharmacists withhold birth control, blocking emergency contraception for rape victims, and cutting public funding for family planning and birth control,” concluded Roys. “Wisconsin women cannot afford to let Mark Green become governor.”
Mark Green’s Extreme Voting Record
Mark Green, Republican gubernatorial candidate, has spent his political career undermining women’s access to preventative health care, including birth control and postpartum care. His votes are lockstep with the Bush Administration and its far-right allies in undermining basic privacy rights and freedoms for Wisconsin families. Mark Green makes it harder for women to bear healthy children, harder to prevent unintended pregnancy, and harder to reduce the need for abortion. He’s received a zero percent rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood.
Green opposes a woman’s right to birth control, even though contraception greatly reduces the need for abortion by preventing unintended pregnancy, and spacing pregnancies by using birth control is proven to result in healthier babies and mothers.
• Co-authored bill to let pharmacists withhold birth control from patients (1997 AB 953)
• Voted to allow insurers to deny birth control coverage, even when they pay for Viagra – but has taken over $70,000 from the insurance industry (1997 AB 693)
• Voted to withhold family planning funds from the world’s poorest women (2001-115)
• Repeatedly endorsed by groups that seek to criminalize birth control
Green opposes health care access and support for mothers and children.
• Voted to allow hospitals to refuse to treat poor patients, even pregnant women (2006-004)
• Voted to slash Medicaid funds for low-income family and child health care (2005-601)
• Blocked a vote to increase the minimum wage to $7.25/hour, even though Wisconsin’s single mothers and their families face high levels of poverty (2005-365)
• Voted to let insurance companies continue “drive through delivery” practice of kicking new mothers out of the hospital 12 hours after giving birth
Green would imprison women and doctors for having an abortion.
He co-authored several federal constitutional amendments to criminalize abortion, while refusing to sign on to abortion bans that make exceptions for rape and incest. (2001 HJ Res. 20; 2001 HJ Res. 10)
• Wants abortion criminalized under every circumstance – even when a woman’s health is threatened (2000-104)
• Green supports imprisoning women – even rape and incest victims – who seek abortion and doctors who care for them (2003-530)
• On April 8, 2006, the Wisconsin State Journal reported on Green’s “call to bring back Wisconsin's near-complete ban on abortions,” which, like South Dakota’s recently passed law, makes no exceptions for a woman’s health. Green would also criminalize abortion in cases of rape or incest, saying, that he is opposed to safe, legal abortion “regardless of the terrible circumstances” that caused the pregnancy.
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