MADISON – After reports that an estimated 65,000 Wisconsinites, about half of them children, stand to lose healthcare coverage under Scott Walker’s disastrous cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, yet another morally repugnant example of Walker’s misplaced priorities has emerged as the Department of Justice braced statewide service providers for a 42.5% cut to the Sexual Assault Victim Services program.
These devastating funding cuts, which even Tea Party Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen opposes, will, according to the Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault, “serious [sic] imperil our members’ ability to meet the needs of sexual assault survivors.”
Scott Walker and his Republican Party have already endangered the rights of victims of sexual assault by proposing radical legislation that would outlaw abortion, even in cases of rape and incest, and ban common forms of contraception, overturning the Compassionate Care for Rape Victims Act, the Wisconsin law requiring hospitals provide victims of rape with comprehensive, compassionate care, including access to emergency birth control to prevent pregnancy resulting from an assault.
“This reprehensible attack on sexual assault safety nets shows that the limits of Scott Walker’s anti-woman, anti-child agenda know no bounds,” Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate said Tuesday. “When wealthy special interests come knocking on the door, Scott Walker is more than happy to answer with billions in tax giveaways, but when the most vulnerable among us come calling in their most desperate time of need he slams the door in their faces.”
