Why Doctors Think Wisconsin’s Proposed 20-Week Abortion Ban Is Absurd
BY ALICE OLLSTEIN POSTED ON JUNE 3, 2015 AT 9:05 AM
MADISON, WISCONSIN — It is painful and scary for Carly to talk openly about her abortion. But the Wisconsin native, who did not want to publish her real name, said she was moved to speak out when she learned that a bill backed by Gov. Scott Walker (R) to ban nearly all abortions after 20 weeks was advancing quickly towards passage.
Carly told ThinkProgress that she and her husband had been trying to get pregnant for 10 months, but the same day they learned they were expecting a son, they learned he would have a serious, possibly fatal heart defect. “I was at 21 weeks and two days when we got the test results back, and it wasn’t good news,” Carly told ThinkProgress. “I was so vulnerable and just devastated. This was a baby that we desperately wanted. But we talked about it and decided that we could deal with the hospitals and all the surgeries, but could our son? Should he have to live every single day of his life in pain? I don’t think he should. What kind of a life is that?” Carly said the decision also hinged on the wellbeing of her husband’s teenage daughter, who has several disabilities. “We also had to think about what is best for her,” she said. “She needs a lot of our attention, and she doesn’t need to watch her little brother suffer.”
Wisconsin already has many restrictions that make it difficult to get an abortion. Currently, there are only four clinics that offer abortions — meaning 95 percent of Wisconsin counties does not have one — in a state with more than a million women of reproductive age. The number of family planning clinics has been dwindling, too. Five more clinics were operating in rural areas before Gov. Scott Walker slashed funding for Planned Parenthood in his 2011 budget. Those who can access an abortion clinic can’t use their insurance to help pay for the procedure if they’re covered on Medicaid or a subsidized federal plan under the Affordable Care Act. Additionally, they must go through a mandatory counseling session and ultrasound, then wait 24 hours before having the abortion itself — ostensibly to think harder about the decision to terminate the pregnancy.
Carly told ThinkProgress she found this waiting period burdensome and insulting. “As if I hadn’t already been thinking about it every single day, 24 hours a day, for weeks, leading up to it,” she said. Afraid she would have to wait several more weeks to schedule the two appointments in her own state necessary to complete the counseling requirement, Carly took nearly a week off of her job in a dental lab to travel to Chicago for the procedure. She told ThinkProgress that, even though it “would have been so much more comforting to be at home during such an awful time,” she was instead forced to navigate Chicago traffic and pay for a hotel room.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/06/03/3665181/wisconsin-hearing-abortion/
This is Walker's Wisconsin.
= new reply since forum marked as read
we want brain-dead assholes in charge
we are the TEAPARTY 
