Sarah Palin....Where to Begin?

Its been a long while since I've posted...but to use a cutsie, folksie, Sarah Palin-like phrase...its got my dander up and requires a-bloggin'. (By the way, the rest of us Alaskans DO NOT share that accent).

The announcement of Sarah Palin as the VP nominee for presidential candidate John McCain caught all of us in Alaska by surprise. For those who didn't vote for her in her run for governor, it was horrifying, to say the least.

Sarah, to me, is the antipathy of everything I have worked so hard for as a woman, and everything I have advocated for on girls and women's issues. I'll be talking more about several of those thoughts in future posts, but for now, lets look at her treatment of women's health, and victims of domestic violence, incest and sexual assault.

She is opposed to anything other than abstinence-only sex education in public schools. Yet Alaska has the highest rate of chlamydia in the nation, while ranking in the middle of the 50 states for other STI's and HIV. Do you think maybe a governor of a state with these public health statistics ought to be concerned that maybe our kids aren't getting the information they need to be healthy and safe?

I personally recall an advocate from STAR's (Standing Together Against Rape) presentation to my 2nd grade son's class about "good touch/bad touch". The advocate told me afterward that they almost always have one or two children come forward after such presentations that report molestation by an immediate family member or relative. My teen daughter has related stories to me of friends who were sexually molested by fathers, stepfathers, uncles, etc. who only got the courage to come forward because of such presentations. These children deserve to know where resources lie. Yet the McCain/Palin campaign has maligned Barack Obama for supporting legislation in his home state that would support such safety-oriented presentations to kids, and McCain has publicly opposed medically accurate and comprehensive sex education.

Palin is virulently pro-life to the point of not believing a victim of rape or incest should be able to elect to have an abortion. Although she says she supports contraception, she doesn't support EC (Emergency Contraception).

What a kick in the gut to girls and women who have been victimized by sexual assault over their lifetimes. And let me say, these are no small numbers. 1 in 6 women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. 9% of Alaska students in grades 9-12 report having been physically forced to have sexual intercourse when they did not want to (2007 Alaska Youth Risk Behavior Study). The Harvard School of Public Health’s exhaustive research on the lives of girls demonstrates that girls who are victims of violence from dating partners are four to six times more likely than non-abused girls to become pregnant, and eight to nine times more likely to attempt suicide.

Katie Couric's recent interview of Palin put this in real terms: In response to the example Couric gave of a 15 year-old victim of incest impregnated by her father, Palin said that the girl should have to carry the rapists baby to term.

Let's get down to the nitty gritty on that example. 80% of rape victims will suffer from chronic physical or psychological conditions over time. (Strategies for the Treatment and Prevention of Sexual Assault. 1995) Rape survivors are also 13 times more likely to attempt suicide than not crime victims and 6 times more likely than victims of other crimes. (Rape in America: A Report to the Nation, 1992) 26% of women with bulimia nervosa were raped at some point in their lives. The mental health costs of sexual assault victims are very high, studies have shown that 25 - 50% of rape and child sexual abuse victims receive some sort of mental health treatment as a result of the victimization. (Miller, 1996) . So per Palin, the mothers emotional, mental and physical well being is not important. Not only should a sexual assault victim not be allowed to end a pregnancy that occurred as a result of a crime, but she can't even use EC to prevent the pregnancy because Palin believes that to be abortion as well. There is nothing about this that is not simply sick and twisted, and displays Palin's childlike views as lacking insight into the real lives of sexual assault victims and survivors, their health, safety and welfare.

But that just highlights more of what we already know about her indifference towards women. During her time as mayor of podunk Wasilla, sexual assault victims were held responsibile for payment of their own "rape kits" --the forensic examination needed to collect evidence. Her supporters keep saying, "but did she know?" Please. Wasilla is a small town, the budget is small potatoes, and Palin appointed the police chief who supported that policy and personally signed off on the budget that reflected that policy. Eric Croft, the former state legislator who sponsored the corrective legislation stated Palin never spoke out against the practice, and her police chief was quoted as complaining about the passage of the state bill in her own local newspaper because of the burden to taxpayers. For those of you reading from outside of Alaska, Wasilla is too small a town for her to claim she didn't know about major state legislation concerning this item and the accompanying media coverage of it.

Lets take this even further. This policy and the anti-victim stances regarding EC are even more horrifying in light of the specific statistics about incest and sexual assault in Alaska. Alaska has the highest per capita rates of rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Justice and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Alaska's incidence of sexual assault is 2.5 times the national average. Its rates of child sexual abuse is 6 times the national average. And its per-capita rate of women killed by men is consistently one of the highest in the nation. For Native Alaskan women, the reality is even grimmer. 1 in 3 female Native Alaskans and American Indians are raped in their lifetime, and 3 in 4 have been sexually assaulted. Native Alaskan women are 10 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than all other Alaskan women.

As governor, Palin stood in the way of efforts to expand legal-services to victims of sexual assault, fired Walt Monegan, a life-long committed public safety officer with broad respect from police, urban and Bush Alaskans, for his dedication to these issues. As Public Safety Commissioner, he established and supported measures to strengthen law enforcement in the Bush (Alaska's euphamism for native rural areas). Most recently she claimed, through her attorney, Thomas Van Flein, that Monegan's trip to D.C. to request federal funds to help combat domestic violence and sexual assault was "the last straw." Palin asserts she had not authorized the trip and is now claiming he was fired because he was a "rogue". Palin's habitual lying showed up again, however, with state travel authorization forms and e-mails showing that her chief of staff did indeed know of the intent of this trip and approved the funds for travel.

State agencies involved with the protection of women and children have had to be notably vague, given that she may be back here and in a position to exact her brand of vengeance on those that oppose her. "She's really done a lot of work on oil and gas, but when it comes to violence against women and children. . . we haven't been on her radar as a priority," said Peggy Brown, executive director of the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. "..."publicly speaking out against domestic violence," noted Judy Cordell, director of Abused Women's Aid in Crisis (AWAIC). Wow. She publicly spoke out against domestic violence. Excuse me while I hold back my adoration. Anyone out there who is in favor of domestic violence?

I will give some credit where credit is due. She did fund the minimum budget requests from the Council on Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault, and did sign off on several pieces of legislation advanced by others related to crimes including domestic violence and sexual assault during her time as governor of Alaska.

I won't credit her on not acting on her personal beliefs in regards to abortion that jeopardizes women's lives. She's chimed in on those issues at every opportunity. Although she did not push another bill limiting such rights it was only because it was advanced during special legislative session, and there simply wasn't enough time nor votes for it to pass--not because she wasn't supporting it. She called the decision of the Alaska Supreme Court, declaring a parental notification bill unconstitutional, "outrageous" and ordered the Attorney General to file papers for a re-hearing. In Alaska that year approximately 126 teens obtained abortions, and only small number did so without involving family. Per the attorney for Planned Parenthood of Alaska, Jeff Feldman, "very few minors find themselves in this situation," Those that do often come "from difficult or troubled families, where maybe the father or stepfather is the father..." Her personal religious convictions and use of her office to keep this issue in the courts, spending taxpayer dollars to fuel this agenda, further ignores the horrific complexities and challenges faced by abused young women.

I urge women who truly support other girls and women's health, safety and well-being to critically analyze the candidates. For me, there is no question that Sarah Palin is either so narrow minded and religiously boggled so as to have lost sight of the realities, complexities and risks of being female in our society, or she is just plain cruel. Either way, there is no amount of lipstick that can cover the bruising and battering of women's bodies and souls that McCain and Palin's stances and policies may on inflict on American women and girls.