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Oct

30

Wasilla abortion brawl redux in D.C.


The New York Times published an op-ed today by Dorothy Samuels, “The Road From Wasilla: An Old Abortion Fight Revisited.” It details the following debate:

In 1992, a coalition of some 20 evangelical churches in Alaska’s Matanuska-Susitna Valley — including the Wasilla Assembly of God Church, where Ms. Palin was baptized at age 12 — captured control of the operating board of the community’s Valley Hospital.

The new board promptly voted to bar doctors from performing abortions at the hospital with limited exceptions for cases of rape, incest, dire medical necessity or where a doctor documents “the fetus has a condition that is incompatible with life.” The policy change left Alaska without any hospital where a woman with, say, a negative amniocenteses result or other problem not included among the exceptions could obtain a second trimester abortion at a doctor’s discretion. Such procedures account for about 10 percent of all abortions.

Dr. Susan Lemagie was by then the only physician in the state who performed elective abortions after the first 12 weeks (incidentally, she delivered the first two of Ms. Palin’s five children). She and the Mat-Su Coalition for Choice sued to overturn the new restrictions.

Eventually, the Alaska Supreme Court decided in favor of Lemagie but one of the leading right-to-life advocates in Alaska fought for and got passage of something called the Weldon Amendment which extends

…the right to refuse to perform or assist in abortion or sterilization procedures on moral or religious grounds…to hospitals, H.M.O.’s, insurance plans and an array of other health care institutions. Under the , any law or regulation mandating such services was deemed “discriminatory,” and could trigger a loss of federal financing.

The current Bush administration, via Mike Leavitt at Health and Human Services, is on the brink of extending those provisions further still, in such a way that the danger Lemagie felt will return in exponential form:

Any day now, President Bush’s secretary of health and human services, Michael Leavitt, is expected to deliver a parting blow to women’s reproductive freedom: new regulations further limiting access to abortions, contraceptives and accurate information about reproductive health care options.

Think overturning Roe only means that states have to work harder?  These steps just outlined all involve the federal government.  John McCain and Sarah Palin use campaign rhetoric about shrinking government and keeping it out of our homes.  They call government involvement akin to the creation of a nanny state and they claim that Barack Obama and Joe Biden are the bearers of socialism and communal everything.

From what I hear and see, in their words and actions and what they support, it is McCain and Palin who seek to control our every decision and step in via governmental action, putting their personal preferences into law so that we have no ability to exercise any preference.

That doesn’t sound like any concept of freedom I’ve ever imagined.

By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:26 am October 30th, 2008 in Abortion, Barack Obama, Campaigning, Courts, Government, Health Care, John McCain, Law, Sarah Palin, WH2008, Women 

Comments

3 Responses to “Wasilla abortion brawl redux in D.C.”

  1. 1 Have Coffee Will Write » Blog Archive » WHAT THEY SAID… on October 30th, 2008 10:45 am

    [...] Jill Miller Zimon writes: Think overturning Roe only means that states have to work harder? These steps just outlined all involve the federal government. John McCain and Sarah Palin use campaign rhetoric about shrinking government and keeping it out of our homes. They call government involvement akin to the creation of a nanny state and they claim that Barack Obama and Joe Biden are the bearers of socialism and communal everything. [...]

  2. 2 The Reverend on October 30th, 2008 10:51 am

    Well said.

    Barack will have a lot of work to do.

  3. 3 Oengus on October 30th, 2008 12:17 pm

    Ever wonder how one third of the population can exist on a household income of less than $25,000 a year?

    What is really stupid is what the right is selling as an interpretation of the left , it is not socialism the left is presenting it actually is libertarian less government is needed if the lowest incomes are more independent reducing tax on them helps that. They are not even addressing the average as socialism as they also get a reduced tax burden. They are going after the top rung while reducing the burden from the bottom up.

    Then proposing cuts in funding through process reengineering, looking for programs that add no value and getting rid of them, that’s libertarian the opposite of socialism, not even close to communism.

    McCain and Palin are not brains, they are twisting reality and you and yours are not clear minded enough to see it, they are playing the fear card under false pretenses. That is actually evil and if they believe it to be true, then ignorant and mostly likely a bit of both.

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