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Sunday, September 21, 2008

Sarah Palin on abortion

Amidst all the scare tactics demonizing Sarah Palin, the most repeated is her avowed pro-life tendencies, which represent "the greatest threat yet" to Roe v. Wade, as a recent Obama ad intones. Yet an examination of her record, as undertaken by Newsweek, paints a much different picture. While saying she is pro-life, she hasn't really taken any action to restrict abortion in Alaska. Most notably, she was presented the opportunity by the legislature to bring forth her gas pipeline bill, guaranteed to pass with large margins due to its benefits to the state, with attachments banning partial birth abortion and requiring parental consent. She requested both these measures not be included in the final bill, which was then signed into law. So she could have restricted abortion, and chose not too. She has also met with a pro-choice group and spoke to them about her experiences as a working woman, although they accuse her of ignoring their needs. She has appropriated funding increases for domestic violence shelters, but critics say she should have done more. She sounds like a politician, more than anything, but given her statement in her interview with Charles Gibson that her pro-life view is a "personal choice", perhaps she thinks others ought to make their own choices as well. I don't know that this is accurate, but judging from her record, she is certainly no anti-abortion crusader, as she has been portrayed, although she certainly tends to emphasize her own views as policy to gatherings of Christian pro-life voters.

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