Sarah Palin Death Watch

The more we learn about Sarah Palin, the more amazed I am that John McCain picked her as his running mate. I had always at least respected Senator McCain, even if I disagree with him on a lot of the vital issues in America, but frankly I don’t know what the hell he was thinking by picking Sarah Palin.

It’s now starting to look at least plausible to me that at some point she’ll pull an Eagleton, and drop out of the race, probably citing “family issues”. I mean, who handled her vetting? McCain has already said he only met her once and talked with her once on the phone before offering her the number two job in the country. What was he thinking?

Here’s a list of the problems with Palin that have come up just in less than a week since her name was announced:

1. She has an unwed, pregnant, seventeen-year-old daughter whose boyfriend/fiance sounds like something of a twit.

2. Her husband had a DUI 22 years ago.

Please note! To me, neither of these things matter, but they do matter to others, which is why I’m mentioning them here! I honestly could give a rat’s ass about her family.

3. She has her own personal version of Troopergate

4. She hired someone who had been offically reprimanded for sexual harrassment

5. She was in favor of the “bridge to nowhere”, then against it, then saw to it the bridge got canceled, took the money anyhow, and spent it on a “road to nowhere”

6. She, as recently as a couple weeks ago, has been attending a church where the preacher made anti-Semetic remarks during a sermon

7. She has attended meetings of the Alaskan Independence Party, which wants the state to seceede and has connections with the Constitution Party

8. She has had only one trip overseas, and that was two years ago

9. She has no interest in foreign affairs

10. She doesn’t know what the vice president does on a daily basis (to be fair, neither do I, beyond speeches and collecting dust while waiting to cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate. Oh, and protecting the space-time continuum. Read the Constitution!)

11. Her only “executive experience” has been running a town of about 8,000 people and a state with less people than most major cities

12. She raised taxes while mayor of Wasilla (something that doesn’t bother me, but I thought the GOP preferred lowering taxes?)

This is just what’s come out in the first six days! What’s going to turn up in the next six? Or the next six weeks? I honestly don’t know what McCain was thinking here, beyond the cynical “let’s get a pretty lady to woo the Hillary voters”. So he picked an empty (pants)suit. Someone with little experience and lots of liabilities. So much for putting “Country First”.

If this continues, I gave it a month or less before she is replaced.

Fraking Cool!

Ha. MSN has an article all about the use of a certain word popularized by a certain show I’m very fond of.

Sadly Unsurprising

Ok, for the most part, I’m trying to stay above the whole conversation about Sarah Palin’s daughter. I really don’t think it’s any of our business. I do note with some interest, though, the following two things about Palin herself:

1. She’s against comprehensive sex-ed and feels children should be taught abstinence only.

2. As governor of Alaska, she slashed funding for programs designed to help unwed teenage mothers, not all of whom are fortunate enough to have a rich family to help them out.

Interestingly, I now notice that the site that had her comments about sex education, as well as her comments about the Pledge, has sense removed the post. Fascinating. Given the pro-life bent I’m seeing to the site, I think I can guess why.

On Abortion

Ok, it’s high-time I tackled this puppy! I gave it a slight mention in my article on an eleven-year-old Romanian girl who needed an abortion, but I think it’s time for me to cover this in a bit more detail.

So here it is: I am pro-choice (no shock), and have no real ethical problem with abortion, at least up to a point. Now for the details.

First, I don’t feel that I have a right to tell someone else what they can and cannot do with their bodies. If someone doesn’t want to spend nine months carrying a child, I can’t force them to do so, not ethically.

Second, forcing someone to have a child they do not want is a perfect way to assure that child has a more miserable life. True, the mother can give the kid up for adoption, but that usually just means the kid ends up spending its life in a variety of foster and group homes. Don’t try to give me the arguement that all children are wanted, because we know that’s not true. If it were, there wouldn’t be any children in those situations.

Third, though it’s not as common as it used to be, women can and do die in childbirth. Even if you’re in a hospital surounded by doctors, it’s still possible to have a fatal hemorage. Yes, it doesn’t happen often, but it happens often enough. I don’t feel that I have the right to tell someone they must do something that could end up in them dying. I’m not willing to place a real life in danger to protect a potential life.

Fourth, an embryo is not a person. Please remember this, cause it’s very important. An embryo is not a person any more than an egg is a chicken. For the first many weeks they are just a small collection of cells with the potential to be more, and just because something has human cells, that doesn’t make it human. My dandruff is not me.

Fifth, while it is hard to draw an exact line as to when a fetus becomes a person, I’d say I agree with this article here, that points out fetuses don’t even have proper brain-waves until about the 30th week. At that point, I’d say they are human enough to prevent an abortion except in the most extreme circumstances.

Sixth, if a child has clear birth defects, especially mental ones, then, harsh though this might sound, society benefits from that pregnancy being terminated. If you have someone who is severely retarded, they are going to forever be a drain to society on an economic level and to their family on an economic and likely emotional level. Please note: I’m not saying anyone who is mentally disabled needs to be killed or anything like that, and if someone choses to bring a baby into the world that they know will have major issues, that’s fine and that’s their choice. I’m just saying society as a whole does not benefit by there being more people with, say, Down syndrome. It’s nice that Sarah Palin choose to bring a baby with that condition into the world, but it certainly isn’t one I would’ve made. I’m probably phrasing this part of the argument badly, but I think I’m getting the point across ok. I’ve already braced for the incoming comments about it.

Lastly, as shown in Freakonomics, there appears to be a direct correlation between access to safe abortions and a decrease in crime. A few minutes thought will explain why, but in case it doesn’t, read the book. It’s good.

Ultimately if women don’t have access to safe abortions, they’ll go out and get unsafe ones. It’s also especially annoying to me that the same groups who tend to be anti-choice also tend to be the abstinence-only types. Not only do they not want to give kids safe ways to avoid getting pregnant, they want to deny them access to abortions if they should end up in an delicate condition.

Roe v Wade is the law of the land, and that’s not likely to change, even if McCain gets into office. That doesn’t mean he won’t try, though, as for reasons unclear to me abortion seems to trump everything else when it comes to the Christian right. If Obama is elected, which appears likely, then hopefully we can get abortion rights a little more solidly setup than they are now.