Welcome to our blog!

Welcome to NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin's new blog!

We are excited to be launching our blog on NARAL Pro-Choice America's annual "Blog for Choice Day". On Blog for Choice Day, pro-choice bloggers across the country are asked to answer a question on their blogs. This year, the question is, "Given the anti-choice gains in the states and Congress, are you concerned about choice in 2011?"

The short answer to that question is that as the Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin, I am always concerned about choice. Of course, it's not that simple. Our new Governor and his colleagues in the State Legislature pose the single biggest threat to choice in Wisconsin in a generation.

Already, anti-choice legislators are threatening to ban insurance coverage for abortion - even in private plans paid for with our own money - under Wisconsin's implementation of federal health care reform. Despite the success of the recently passed Healthy Youth Act, they wish to go back to the days of ineffective abstinence-only sex education for our youth. Other prevention bills implemented last year - such as Contraceptive Equity and Prescription Protection - are at risk of repeal, and Governor Walker has promised reductions and roll-backs in our state's Badger Care and Family Planning Waiver programs. While serving in the Legislature, he even tried to defund family planning service providers like Planned Parenthood.

Unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Anti-choice groups are lobbying for legislation that would force a woman seeking an abortion to view an ultra-sound against her own will, and they are petitioning their supporters to push the Legislature to move forward a so-called personhood amendment that would give rights to a fetus. With anti-choice extremists in control of the Governor's office and both houses of the State Legislature, the possibilities are endless.

So in response to the Blog for Choice Day question, yes, I am concerned - even alarmed - but not defeated. The election that put these anti-choice extremists in office was not a mandate on abortion. Wisconsin has faced significant economic challenges, and these newly elected officials promised economic development and jobs. The majority of Wisconsinites are pro-choice, and we will be there to remind Governor Walker and our legislators that they were elected on these promises, not to take away our fundamental reproductive freedom. Despite our vigilance, we may lose some battles along the way, but we will not be defeated.

Our newly elected leaders are poised to move forward with their extreme anti-choice and anti-woman agenda. Each time anti-choice legislation is introduced, we will be there to remind them that not a single job is created by meddling with our uteruses. We will be there fighting for our rights every step of the way. And we will be tracking every bill, recording every vote, documenting every anti-choice action, and preparing for pro-choice victory in the 2012 election.