Heather Weininger takes over for Sue Armacost at Wisconsin Right to Life

[lynn82md.livejournal.com]

This was brought to my attention by jem_endured_fit, who's from Wisconsin.

The pro-life movement has had a successful run in Wisconsin since a solid block of conservative Republicans took over the governor's mansion and both houses of the state Legislature in 2010.

By most estimates, the passage of abortion-restrictive bills will continue until the Legislature is no longer controlled by Republicans or a pro-life governor is no longer in office.

For the past 26 years, Sue Armacost has been at the forefront of the pro-life movement in Wisconsin as the legislative and political action committee director for Wisconsin Right to Life, one of the state’s most powerful pro-life groups.

At the end of the year, Armacost is retiring and Green Bay native Heather Weininger is taking her place. Weininger, 36, is the wife of Rep. Chad Weininger, R-Green Bay.

The couple met while working for former U.S. Rep. Mark Green, a Green Bay Republican. Chad staffed Green’s Green Bay office and Heather worked in D.C.

Baptized Lutheran and confirmed and married Methodist, she converted to Catholicism when the couple’s twin daughters, now 18 months, were baptized Catholic, the religion of their father.

It was during her time in Green’s office from 1999 to 2003 that Weininger first worked on what she calls "life and women’s issues" as the partial-birth abortion ban was being debated in Congress. The bill went on to pass, but after Weininger had returned to Green Bay to get married and complete her degree in political science and public administration at UW-Green Bay.

Weininger has been working alongside Armacost for several months and will take over full-time Jan. 1. She recently sat down with the Capital Times at a coffee shop in Green Bay to talk about Wisconsin Right to Life’s legislative priorities and why she believes life, at all stages of development, needs to be protected.

What did your experience in D.C. teach you?

At that time, it was OK to be in one party and believe in a core value of the other party. Now you see a clear divide. Back in the day, there were Democrats that were pro-life that we worked with. That’s not the case anymore.

How do you view the political world you will soon be navigating?

In Wisconsin there is a clear divide over what side of any issue you are on now. Compromise … that’s a word I don’t even know if people use anymore. Yes or no, white or black and that’s the end of it. That’s unfortunate.

Why does the pro-life movement put the life of an unborn child before the rights of a woman to make a choice?

I don’t think we put the unborn child in front of it (the right to choose), but we do believe protecting life at all stages is the most important thing.

An example of this is the hospital admitting privileges. We want to protect the safety of the procedure and the woman. That’s the whole reason hospital admitting privileges were put in Sonya’s Law (a bill that was signed into law by Gov. Scott Walker July 5).

We know right now abortions are legal. But how can we protect the women to get the safest services if she choices that option?

There is fallout from that, though. There is a lawsuit challenging the law and two abortion clinics could close as a result. A large percentage of hospitals in Wisconsin are Catholic, meaning they won’t grant privileges or perform the procedure. How do fewer clinics make abortion safer for women?

That (abortion) is still an option, if that’s what women choose. There are still clinics open. Yes, they may have to travel farther. But at the end of the day if something goes wrong and the doctor doesn’t have admitting privileges anywhere close to where they are, the life of the mother is still at risk. It is all about the safety of the mom if that is the road she decides to choose.

Do you see abortion as a medical or moral issue?

For some people it’s both. For some people it’s a matter of you are killing a child. That’s certainly something an individual has to think about and deal with the consequences of for the rest of their life.

Are you pro-life?

Yes, always have been. I was raised in a family where we didn’t really take about it or the politics surrounding it. But you just knew from what my parents said that you protect life from the moment it’s conceived until the moment you die. That’s how I’ve always thought of it.

What are your immediate goals?

We still have two bills in the Senate that we’d like to get passed. One is known as the prenatal nondiscrimination or “sex-selection bill,” the other is the health care conscience act. One of those bills would prevent state insurance plans from covering abortions for public employees.

Explain why driving further if the requiring hospital admitting privileges forces two clinics to close and female public employees having to pay for an abortion doesn’t discriminate against less-affluent women.

When it comes to public employees, it comes down to taxpayers of Wisconsin paying for these services. That is our concern.

What about the other concern, that you are limiting access?

These are state employees. These are not average citizens who are paying for their insurance and receiving this service (an abortion). We are directly worried about state employees receiving the service with taxpayer dollars.

Sue Armacost was working with lawmakers on a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Is that an issue you plan to move forward on?

That is certainly on our radar screen. But at this point, we want to make sure our priority bills pass that we had for this session. We won’t be introducing any other types of legislation this session (including a 20-week ban). We want to make the two (bills mentioned above) pass first.

Women in the pro-choice movement say they don’t want lawmakers, a majority of whom are still men, deciding what they should be allowed to do to their bodies. Your husband’s a lawmaker. What do you think?

I would ask are these women only going to go to female doctors to receive services? Will they avoid going to a male doctor who obviously went to school for this and understands their anatomy and what is going on with them?

Do you find it is still worth talking to Democrats?

Yes, if they’ll take a meeting.

I will say this … that because we have such a large majority, it’s hard to get through the people that support our issues.

We work well with those that agree with us. We just happen to be lucky at this time that the Legislature is the way that it is.

Comments

[lynn82md.livejournal.com]

Back in the day, there were Democrats that were pro-life that we worked with. That’s not the case anymore.
So, according to this woman, there's no more Democratic pro-lifers anymore. Hmmm...better tell those on my flist that are prolife and democrats that the new director of Wisconsin thinks that prolife democrats don't exist anymore. Luckily for those that are a prolife democrat, they don't live in Wisconsin (Two of them live in New York and another one lives in PA).

I don’t think we put the unborn child in front of it (the right to choose), but we do believe protecting life at all stages is the most important thing.
Bullshit

We know right now abortions are legal. But how can we protect the women to get the safest services if she choices that option?
Gee, I don't know...stop trying to restrict abortion would be a start. In fact, you all could actually start supporting things like birth control so the risk of a woman having an unwanted pregnancy would work wonders too.

That (abortion) is still an option, if that’s what women choose. There are still clinics open. Yes, they may have to travel farther. But at the end of the day if something goes wrong and the doctor doesn’t have admitting privileges anywhere close to where they are, the life of the mother is still at risk. It is all about the safety of the mom if that is the road she decides to choose.
Translation of the first sentence: "It's still an option, but we're going to make it very hard to get that option."
Translation of the last sentence: "The woman wouldn't have her life at risk if she didn't choose abortion".
My personal translations of what this woman is saying aside...if a woman has a serious complication resulting from pregnancy (you know...since it's not a secret that pregnancy can get risky, which women know if they go on the path to want to carry to term) and she can't travel anywhere else that does the abortions because of the state she's in...how the fuck is that going to be safe for the woman?

For some people it’s a matter of you are killing a child.
Alright, I don't mind if someone wants to personally view their own fetus as a child. They can call it a fun sized Snicker bar for all I care (which I actually did when I was pregnant). However, when you try to push your view that ending a pregnancy...whether it's for elective or therapeutical reasons, to that of killing a born kid on other people when it's not the same damn thing...I do mind.