The McCain-Palin Bait-and-Switch on Rape and Women

[Stop Cornyn]

If elected, McCain would be the oldest person ever inaugurated President of the United States.

McCain has a long medical history of significant concern for a 72 year old.

Given that McCain has sought to appeal to moderates and independents, McCain's choice of an extremist right-wing running mate with out-of-the-mainstream views on rape and women's rights is a deceitful bait-and-switch trick on the voting population.

For example,

Palin disagrees with McCain on whether a woman who has been raped should be allowed to choose to terminate a rape-induced pregnancy.

Palin disagrees with McCain on whether a woman carrying a pregnancy which is likely to cause her to suffer a serious permanent disability as a result of carrying the pregnancy to term should be allowed to choose to terminate the pregnancy.

While Palin would severely limit other women’s rights to choose their own health care options with respect to their own pregnancies, Palin made a series of disastrously poor judgments with respect to her own most recent pregnancy. She was 44 at the time (so it was a high risk AMA pregnancy), and she knew she was carrying a child with a chromosomal atypicality (which increased the risk), and yet she chose to take an 11 hour flight from Alaska to Texas to give a career-boosting speech in her 8th month of pregnancy without disclosing her pregnancy to the public airline she flew on (many airlines require disclosure and a doctor’s consent as a prerequisite to such flights, and few doctors would consent to such folly). In Texas, her water broke hours before she was scheduled to give her political speech (and since her water broke in the 8th month, the prematurity of the birth again greatly magnified the already extreme risk), but instead of going the hospital right away, she stayed and gave her speech. After her political speech, instead of going the hospital right away, she got on another 11 hour public flight from Dallas to Anchorage with a switch in Seattle, and – again – she did not disclose her pregnancy or the fact that he water had broken hours earlier to the airline. Palin made these dubious choices about her pregnancy, yet she would limit other woman to exercise their full panoply of constitutionally-protected health care choices during pregnancy.

Palin disagrees with McCain in the related issue of stem cell research, which she vehemently opposes.

McCain's media embargo seeking to hide Palin from honest disclosure must not be perpetrated without vociferous objection from every one of us who knows what an extremist Palin is.