Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Palin's Anti-Choice Stance



Her interview with Katie Couric has some information on her pro-life principles:

COURIC: If a 15-year-old is raped by her father, you believe it should be illegal for her to get an abortion. Why?

PALIN: I am pro-life and I'm unapologetic about my position there on pro-life, and I understand good people on both sides of the abortion debate.

Now, I would counsel to choose life. I would like to see a culture of life in this country. But I would also like to see, taking it one step further, not just saying I am pro-life and I want fewer and fewer abortions in this country. But I want, then, those women who find themselves in circumstances that are absolutely less than ideal for them to be supported, for adoptions to be made easier.

COURIC: But ideally, you think it should be illegal for a girl who is raped or the victim of incest to get an abortion?

PALIN: I'm saying that personally I would counsel that person to choose life despite horrific, horrific circumstances that this person would find themselves in. And if you're asking, though, kind of foundationally here, should anybody end up in jail for having had an abortion? Absolutely not. That's -- that's nothing that I would ever support.

This is pretty confusing. Note that Couric starts by noting that Palin believes the hypothetical fifteen-year old, raped and impregnated by her father, should not have recourse to a legal abortion. But Palin does NOT address that at all. Instead, she appears to suddenly turn pro-choice: She would "counsel to choose life." If abortion was made illegal for victims of rape and/or incest, nobody could "counsel" the victim to "choose" life, she'd be forced to bring the pregnancy to term.

When Couric returns to the question whether abortion should be made illegal in the example she starts with, Palin continues using the choice metaphor as if there was any choice left after the laws have been changed.

She's scared of saying plainly that she would ban abortion in all cases except the one where the woman's life is at immediate risk. Never mind if the woman was raped by her father (or by some stranger who just decided that she should bear children), never mind if she will end up chronically ill forevermore. Never mind that there would be no choice for women left in Palin's ideal world: She still uses the word "choice".

And what's this all about: "And if you're asking, though, kind of foundationally here, should anybody end up in jail for having had an abortion? Absolutely not."?

So Palin believes abortion is murder. Yet there would be no prison sentence for that murder? I recommend that Palin looks at the criminal codes of the countries where abortion is illegal. Women who have had abortions do, indeed, end up in jail.