Palin considered having abortion

I was trying to figure out how to explain the idea of choice to some of my more conservative friends. It did not take me long to realize that the best example I could ever find was Sarah Palin. Palin, in one of her more vulnerable moments, admitted that she actually thought about having an abortion when she found out her son Trig had Down's Syndrome.

Palin was speaking to a group of conservatives who have her same values. According to Purdum, Palin found out that she was pregnant with her son Trig in Texas. Now I have my issues with Trig's whole birth story, but this is the decision process that she went through, “While out of state, there just for a fleeting moment, I thought, nobody knows me here. Nobody would ever know. I thought, Wow, it is easy to think maybe of trying to change the circumstances and no one would know—no one would ever know. Then when my amniocentesis results came back, showing what they called abnormalities—oh, dear God—I knew, I had instantly an understanding, for that fleeting moment, why someone would believe it could seem possible to change those circumstances, just make it all go away, get some normalcy back in life.”

Of course, Palin did not decide to terminate her pregnancy, but she had a choice to make. These are very revealing statements, but what they really show is the hypocrisy of one who vehemently anti-choice. Palin and others like her would deny the same decision process to every other American woman even in the event of rape and incest.

Palin's son was born with Down's Syndrome. She chose to have her son, even though she chose to hide her pregnancy from her staff and others. The question is, does Palin realize that if she had her way she would not have had those choices to make. Abortion is nasty business, but maybe it is a private matter between the woman and her creator.

That is where the right misunderstands the idea of choice. They think that it was given to women by man when Roe v. Wade was passed, but in truth, the right to choose our paths was given to humans at the dawn of time. One of the things that set us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom, according to the creation story, is that God gave us the free will. Adam and Eve had the right to choose to eat of the Tree of Knowledge and the right to choose to die. We have the right to choose a life as a Christian or not. We have the right to choose to commit murder or not. The consequences are dire, but you still have that choice.

Sarah Palin made a choice not to have an abortion and that is all other women are asking for: the ability to choose and to live with their choice. Mrs. Palin was a Governor who had the means to care for a child with Down’s. Yet, she and others would take that choice from every other American, even though one of the first gifts God gave to man was the freedom to choose.