Hi folks,
Kirk Bangstad here from the Minocqua Brewing Company with my weekly round up.
If you’ve read this email in the last month, you’ve witnessed me using this platform to help spread the word that this upcoming Wisconsin Supreme Court election is crucial to holding onto democracy in Wisconsin.
With your help, our Super PAC raised tens of thousands of dollars to put billboards up around Wisconsin to remind people that this is our LAST CHANCE FOR FAIR MAPS (in a decade), and that if we don’t elect a progressive Supreme Court Judge, we’ll remain the most dysfunctional state in America--legislated by nihilistic wackos in thrall to MAGA grifters.
Well, this week we focused on the OTHER HUGE REASON why we have to elect a progressive judge—CHOICE.
After Roe was overturned last summer, a 174-year-old abortion ban went into effect that immediately turned Wisconsin women into 2nd class citizens. As part of an entire week dedicated to this issue, I went to a fundraiser last Monday to help build a women’s healthcare clinic across the border in Rockford, IL, and had a great conversation with State Senator and former Wisconsin NARAL Pro-Choice director Kelda Roys on the Up North Podcast.
The conversations we had were largely the same: To be a woman in her reproductive years living in Wisconsin is currently TERRIFYING.
Here are a few of the stories I heard:
- Abortions have stopped being performed entirely in Wisconsin.
- Women experiencing miscarriages is Wisconsin are being refused care and being rushed to border states.
- We have heard reports of women being denied birth control and IUD procedures.
- All Wisconsin OB/GYN medical residents have gone to border states to get trained, further exacerbating an already huge statewide doctor shortage.
After hearing these stories, I have to admit that if I were a young woman graduating from the UW system right now--maybe with a bright career in law, medicine, technology, or any other great-paying field--I would leave Wisconsin in a heartbeat rather than stay and roll the dice on potentially being harmed in a reproductive-emergency-gone-wrong.
The fallout from this abortion ban, and the continued culture-war chaos coming from our gerrymandered right-wing legislature, is basically kicking Wisconsin’s best and brightest Badgerettes out of our state.
Well...we have an opportunity to bypass this black whole of common sense if we elect a progressive judge on February 21 (primary) and April 4 (general).
There is a good chance that once the balance of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court turns progressive after an April 4th electoral victory, our Attorney General’s lawsuit seeking to overturn this ancient abortion ban would probably win. We’d go back to being a state where it’s still pretty hard to get an abortion, but doctors could do their jobs without fear of going to jail and women could get the care they need.
That's why CHOICE is yet ANOTHER REASON why this judicial race is so important and another reason why the Minocqua Brewing Company held a party last Thursday for 80 people who volunteered to help get out the vote on February 21st for our chosen progressive judicial candidate, Janet Protasiewicz. We thanked these volunteers with some live music and free beer (of course). Although the party is over, you can always still get involved by going to this link.
Now let’s talk about the bigger picture.
To me, CHOICE is as much about education and advocacy as it is about re-litigating Roe. We need to constantly remind all Americans that reproductive healthcare is really just BASIC healthcare, and can't be regulated without harming women.
That's why we recently partnered with Equality Vines out of Sonoma California to make CHOICE Sauvignon Blanc. This wine, complete with a QR code linking to a 45-second video of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg talking about how abortion bans disproportionately hurt poor women, is a tiny billboard that I hope finds its way onto every grocery store shelf.
A percentage of the proceeds of this wine goes to the National Network of Abortion Funds, which is a super-efficient organization that helps poor women get the resources they need to not only pay for a procedure, but to travel to out-of-state clinics.
If you’d like to pre-order a world-class Sauvignon Blanc AND indirectly donate to the National Network of Abortion Funds, here’s a link to buy.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for sticking with us.
Let’s do what we can to keep our mothers, sisters, and daughters safe, healthy, and happy Badger fans, one beer or glass of wine at a time.
Kirk Bangstad
Owner, Minocqua Brewing Company
Founder, Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC