Following is the statement of Democratic Party of Wisconsin Executive Director Maggie Brickerman in response to the comments by Republican Rep. Roger Rivard and his response to the initial comments.
“Both in his initial remarks and in his subsequent attempt to explain them, Republican Assemblyman Roger Rivard, who has been endorsed by Paul Ryan, has demeaned women and shown the extreme philosophies toward women that have taken deep root in the Wisconsin Republican Party.
“Whether it is Tommy Thompson authoring the “Akin Plank” to the national Republican platform and turning back the clock for women; whether it’s Paul Ryan’s long history of opposing the rights of women to make their own health choices; or whether it’s the Republican majority with Scott Walker working to repeal equal pay protections, this Republican Party has shown an outright hostility toward women.
“Even for Rep. Rivard, who was joined by most of his Assembly Republican colleagues in voting to repeal the Equal Pay Protection Act, cut funding for such preventative health care as cervical cancer screenings and pushed a policy stressing abstinence-only sex education for Wisconsin schools, his statements on rape and women were shockingly offensive and demeaning to victims of sexual assault.
“Republicans should not merely renounce the offensive comments by one of their own, they should renounce the extreme attitudes toward women which now guide the Republican Party.”
