Palin - "Rape Kits" A Form Of Abortion?

[kpete]

Saturday, September 13, 2008
Did Palin consider "rape kits" a form of abortion?
John Aravosis (DC) · 9/13/2008 12:09:00 PM ET · Link
21 Comments · reddit · FARK · Digg It! · Stumble It!

(UPDATE: Joe Sudbay just sent me this article. In fact, there are those in the pro-life community who consider treating rape victims "abortion.")
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/may/07050407.html

A reader writes and asks an interesting question. Sarah Palin's town of Wasilla, Alaska, was the only - or at the very least, one of the very few - towns in Alaska to charge rape victims for their own rape kits. Now, rape kits are the medical equipment that the police use to examine rape victims for forensic evidence. During that exam, women are sometimes given drugs to stop the implantation of a possibly fertilized egg in the uterus. (As an aside, the reader asked if sometimes during these exams a fertilized egg is collected as evidence - does anybody have the facts on this?)

Now, Sarah Palin's policy on rape is the following - rapist gets your pregnant, too bad, you're going to carry your rapist's child for 9 months whether you like it or not. Palin wants to outlaw all abortion, unless the mother is going to die. You get raped? You don't get an abortion. And extreme conservatives like Sarah Palin consider stopping a fertilized egg from implanting "abortion." (And if a fertilized egg is collected, they certainly consider that abortion, and murder.) Is this why Sarah Palin was quite possibly the only mayor in Alaska to charge for "rape kits"? She considered treating rape victims a form of abortion?

more at:
http://www.americablog.com/2008/09/did-palin-consider-rape-kits-form-of.html

[grantcart]

1. this is beyond bizarre

[Whisp]

2. evil liar. she told 'charleeeeee' that pro-life was a personal view

and sees that some may not agree with her.

if it's so fucking 'personal' why did she go along with this rape kit charge that affected so many other girls and women.

fucking devil.

[Heidi]

3. She needs to stop portraying herself as a "regular" woman.

She's not. She makes $81,000+ per year and has access to a private plane to tend to any emergency that might arise "back home." She's nowhere _near_ like the rest of us, the majority of whom don't consider a rape-induced pregnancy our lot in life or a gift from "god."

:puke:

[OlderButWiser]

9. $81,000?

Is that all she makes?

[Heidi]

13. $81,000 is a helluva lot more than most "regular" women make,

but it's far more than she's worth as a "leader."

[renate]

4. *speechless*

:wow:

First, :puke:

And second, if this opinion about stopping a fertilized egg from implanting truly is a popular position in the pro-life community (and I believe it is--e.g., pharmacists who won't fill prescriptions for Plan B), what an effective way to show women what's at stake if Palin (or McCain to a lesser degree) gets to choose the next Supreme Court judges.

:scared:

[OlderButWiser]

5. delte doble post

[OlderButWiser]

6. Did she in fact

order that the rape kits be charged to the victims?
I ask because, here in Michigan, the mayor would not be involved with what the police department does.

[POAS]

11. Here is a bit from

Huff Post which directly quotes the "Frontiersman" mewspaper.

Reported the local paper, The Frontiersman, at the time:

While the Alaska State Troopers and most municipal police agencies have covered the cost of exams, which cost between $300 to $1,200 apiece, the Wasilla police department does charge the victims of sexual assault for the tests.

Now, look, maybe this was long-standing policy, instituted far before Palin took office in Wasilla. Maybe she had been appointing people who would overturn this policy. Uh, no. After taking office, Palin fired the police chief, Irl Stambaugh (which made her a subject of a recall effort) and replaced him with Charlie Fannon. Fannon's view of paying to solve rape cases?

Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon does not agree with the new legislation, saying the law will require the city and communities to come up with more funds to cover the costs of the forensic exams.

So, for four years - from 1996, when Palin took office to 2000 when this law was passed - Palin didn't seem to have a problem with charging rape victims to solve their own crime. And if she did, she certainly didn't communicate that to her hand-picked Police Chief, who didn't have a problem with it.

[Riddler]

7. So, she considers it abortion, but having to pay for it makes it ok?

[kayell]

15. I think she's counting on the discouragement part of having to come up with that much money.

Not to mention the number of uninsured who wouldn't be covered.

And the wealthy have always been able to get different medical treatment. Being wealthy demonstrates that God favors you anyway, so the standards are different all the way around.

She of course claims this wasn't her idea, but, she hired the police chief (after canning the one she didn't think would play by her rules), and she signed the budget that said she was fully aware of it's contents. She knew. She approved. She almost certainly instigated. This wasn't the Wasilla policy pre-Palin.

[VAliberal]

8. Aha!

I couldn't figure out why Palin - even as an extreme fundamentalist - would have objections to a testing kit for post-rape treatment, collection of DNA evidence and so on. I have known in my line of work a great many fundies and however far out their views, none were 'pro-rape.'

But, it makes perfect sense that Palin would try to throw a roadblock in front of the testing kit and the humane treatment of a rape victim if an "abortion" was possible in the course of testing procedures or because medicine was administered or provided to prevent pregnancy.

Palin was willing to say to hell with rape victims for the sake of her anti-choice ideology.

[kayell]

10. This looks really likely. Palin is exactly the type to put "God's Law"

above the law of the land. And I'm sure this part of the rape exam would just blow her tiny theocratic mind. Give women the choice!?

"* If there was vaginal penetration during your rape, the doctor will administer a pregnancy test. This is to ascertain whether or not you are pregnant, so The Morning After Pill, which is actually a series of high estrogen birth control pills, can be prescribed. If you are currently taking oral contraceptives, using an intrauterine device, or have been sterilized, this preventive medicine may not be required.

* Your doctor may offer you a high dose estrogen treatment* to prevent pregnancy. Doctors in all states are not required to provide this, so remember to ask if you want it."

http://www.pandys.org/medicalinformation.html

*Plan B or RU-486 are also sometimes offered as options. These are highly unpopular with hard-core types like Palin.

[uppityperson]

12. Good lord, a rape kit is used to examine a person, collect evidence of a rape.

Being offered "morning after pill" can happen after you are raped, but is not part of the evidence collection which is what the "rape kit" is.

I read your links and am appalled at them. The "morning after pill", a high dose contraceptive, taken within 72 hours of intercourse (preferably on the lower end) works (in most cases) to prevent an egg from getting fertilized.

[AzDar]

14. She's dangerous.

:puke:

[emmadoggy]

16. Ok, a little biology lesson...

First, let me say, I'm not a doctor. But I have gone through fertility issues which gave me a pretty good education on human biology.

The question about whether a fertilized egg is collected as evidence during a rape exam is, quite frankly, funny. It can take several hours for the sperm to even reach the egg. Then it can take another several hours for the genetic material of the egg and sperm to pair up. The fertilization takes place in a fallopian tube and it usually takes a few days for the fertilized egg to reach the uterus to begin implanting into the uterine wall. How, exactly, would a doctor doing a rape exam retrieve a microscopic egg floating around in the fallopian tube?? Sorry, that's just silly.

Now - the fact that pregnancy-preventing drugs are given during a rape exam is definitely something many anti-choicers are against as they view their use as abortion. I have no doubt that Palin is one of them. As someone above pointed out, I wouldn't think that the drugs are actually part of the "rape kit" per se, but if word got around that women would be charged for their own rape kits, I'm quite sure it would serve as a big deterrent to many women to even report the rape, thereby preventing them from getting the pregnancy-preventing drugs.

[AtomicKitten]

17. Women must send their used tampons to Palin immediately - for the children!