As mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Sarah Palin required women to pay for their own rape examinations, charges a new TV ad by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
The issue-oriented ad from the women's health and family planning group highlights how "dangerously out of touch when it comes to women’s health and women’s rights" the McCain-Palin ticket is, a recent press statement indicated.
The TV ad also reminds voters of McCain's opposition to the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, a landmark bill that created new federal criminal penalties for domestic violence, and included provisions to end the practice of charging rape survivors for their own rape examinations by making states and cities ineligible to receive federal grant money if they charged rape survivors.
Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden was a co-author fo the Violence Against Women Act.
Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said, “On top of his 125 votes against women’s health, John McCain’s opposition to the Violence Against Women Act is yet another example that he is out of touch when it comes to women’s health and women’s rights.”
On the issue of Palin's decision to bill women for rape kits as Wasilla, Alaska mayor, a recent op-ed expressed disgust. "The rape-kit controversy is a troubling matter. The insult to rape victims is obvious. So is the sexism inherent in singling them out to foot the bill for investigating their own case. And the main result of billing rape victims is to protect their attackers by discouraging women from reporting sexual assaults," wrote New York Times editorial writer Dorothy Samuels.
According to some media revelations, rape kits may have cost between $300 and $1,200. When women advocates sought to pressure Alaskan cities from adopting such a practice, Wasilla specifically resisted change its policy.
But Palin's dangerous positions do not end there. In an interview with CBS News, Palin told Katie Couric just last week that she opposed abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. About seven in ten Americans favor legal abortions in such cases.
Planned Parenthood says the issue ad will air in battleground media markets in Missouri, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
In a related story, Planned Parenthood told the media last week that an unidentified viral e-mail urging people to donate to Planned Parenthood "in honor of Sarah Palin" brought in more than 31,000 donations totaling over $800,000 in just a few days.
