Did Palin consider "rape kits" a form of abortion?

(UPDATE: Joe Sudbay just sent me this article. In fact, there are those in the pro-life community who consider treating rape victims "abortion.")

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?

It's been almost a week now that the Obama campaign has ignored this issue. We wrote about it last Monday, a good 5 days ago. Obama said yesterday that the reason he's not hitting back harder against McCain is because he doesn't want to "lie." It's not lying when you tell the truth about a hideous issue that affects every woman and man in America. This issue had all the hallmarks of a perfect response to throw John McCain off his game:

1. Palin was the only mayor in Alaska to charge rape victims.
2. McCain voted against Biden's own legislation to ban the charging of rape victims.
3. Palin and McCain have made outreach to women, and faux outrage over "sexism," a central part of their campaign.
4. McCain got into trouble years ago for telling a rape joke.
5. McCain hates talking about these issues.
6. The media has shown a marked interest in this story - it's a compelling story they want to tell, but they won't truly jump on it, full force, until the Obama campaign does something with it.
7. The "reason" Palin's chief of police gave for charging for the rape kits was that they didn't want to raise taxes (imagine linking tax cuts and rape, imagine John McCain having to deal with the rape question every time he talks about tax cuts).
8. And now we find out that Palin may have been against rape kits because she may have thought they were a form of abortion.

And the thing, it's all true.

At some point, someone needs to have a chat with whoever in the higher reaches of the Obama campaign is responsible for missing so many no-brainers - it's beginning to look like it's Obama himself - while at the same time complaining that the media insists on covering the "lipstick" story, and accusing anyone who is worried about the direction of this campaign of being a "bedwetter." Had Obama jumped on this story on Monday, when he first knew about it, we'd have still spent this week talking about sexism - but it would have been the sexism of John McCain and Sarah Palin. And before anyone says that the story is telling itself - no it's not. There have been a smattering of news stories about it. That's it. There should have been a media feeding frenzy over this story, but there wasn't because the Obama campaign refused to touch this story.

NOTE FROM JOHN: A reader writes:
I should add that the contraception offered in these instances would either be Plan B or something called the Yuzpe method which is 4 tablets of a high dose oral contraceptive. It would not be RU486 which does expel an implanted ovum. Plan B and the second method have several modes of action, including prevention of implantation of a fertilized ovum in the uterus, but these modes of action do NOT include aborting an already established ovum.
http://www.americablog.com/

I think there is nothing worst then to make a 'victem' a woman who has been raped, carry the child of them an who raped her. The power that gives to the man blows my mind. I will not only violate and brutilize you, but you will be forced to carry my child.

However...I don't think that Obama himself should start the fight. He needs to focus on ecomony. He can talk about how he supports a woman's right to choose, especially if she is the victem of rape or incest.

should be out in the open in the campaign. It certainly is cruelty to require rape victims to pay for the kits that are necessary to obtain the evidence that might prosecute a rapist. And even greater cruelty to require them to bear the children if they don't want to.

There really is a pattern here of protecting the rapist at the expense of the victim. I can believe Palin and her ilk see this as a form of abortion.

Given that Alaska has a sexual-assault rate that is three times the national average (with the average age of the victim being 16 years old) I think this is an issue of major proportions. See this DU thread on the subject: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x7054596

I'm just kidding.

But someone needs to. Wouldn't that be a TASTY debate question?

Since she's not going to be available for interviews any more (I'm assuming, except for FOX of course), questions need to be raised by the Obama campaign that the McCain campaign would have to 1) either respond to or 2) allow the above explanation to be accepted. Either option is okay with me.

forensic evidence with offering contraception. The "Vitullo kit" as its called, was invented by police in the early 1970's as a way of standardizing the evidence collection in hospital emergency rooms. I presume the testing of that evidence has become more and more sophisticated as DNA technology has evolved since then, but the basic collection that goes on in the emergeny room is still pretty much the same: pubic hair and head hair, oral and vaginal swabs, etc. Its pretty thorough because if you don't do it immediately after the crime you've lost your chance at a fresh crime scene.

When I was a rape victim advocate the police did not take victims to hospitals that didn't offer them the morning after pill, i.e., Catholic hospitals. They would take male sexual assault victims to Catholic hospitals and women to other hospitals.

according to the polls many white women have defected to McCain, an issue like this could bring them back, at least give them pause. What is the matter with Obama's campaign?

the BABY is innocent.

it's a sickness. henry hyde had it too.