Sarah Palin and her church and her pastor have made themselves abundantly clear on issues of reproductive privacy — there won’t be any. In a Palin world, if my daughter wanted birth control, she wouldn’t be able to get any, and if I wanted sex education to be taught in my son’s school, I would be out of luck. If a girl I knew were raped and impregnated by her uncle and she elected to have an abortion, she would not be allowed to do so. She wouldn’t even be allowed to take the morning after pill in case he got her pregnant. Maybe there’s something you guys don’t get about this. Bristol Palin’s pregnancy is at the heart of what women and the right wing have been fighting over for thirty years, and it isn’t abortion, it’s privacy and the right to control your own reproductive choices. There will always be abortion, and there will always be choice, but Palin would like the choice to be illegal and punishable. Same with birth control.

Right on, sister! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Sarah Palin hates women. She hates me. She hates my freedom to control my uterus. She hates my access to contraception. This is not a woman who should be anywhere near a Presidency. Neither should John McCain. The Bristol Palin pregnancy is not an issue of family privacy, it’s a reminder of the bigger problem: the Vice Presidential nominee’s archaic and misogynist attitude towards reproductive health. Ladies and gentlemen, if you want to live in a world based on The Handmaid’s Tale, vote for McCain/Palin in ’08.

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First, a caveat: it’s probably really shitty to be pregnant at 17. I can only imagine that, being still a child and all, you must be damn scared for your future. Forget college applications and SATs, you have chosen Door Number Three! Congratulations, you’ve won: a baby! And at least eighteen years of massive responsibility!

Now, I imagine it’s also really shitty to be told by your VP Candidate mom that you have to marry the boy who got you pregnant, even though he’s also still a kid and is probably more interested in his Nintendo Wii than the ins and outs of effective parenting, never mind interested in creating that lifelong romance you’ve probably dreamed of while watching all those Disney movies growing up. But, whatever, shit happens, and I feel really sorry for a young girl who is not only going through the trauma of an unexpected pregnancy but also the much scarier trauma of having 300 million people talking about what’s in her uterus. Oh, and dealing with the whole “mother running for Vice President” thing.

Now, here’s my problem with how this delightful little fetus has been discussed by the McCain/Palin team. The McCain campaign has been careful to say that Bristol Palin made the decision “on her own” to continue with her pregnancy. But as Ann at Feministing correctly points out:

While it’s obvious why they made this statement to assure the public that Bristol was not coerced into keeping the baby (after all, she does have a parent who is a staunch opponent of the right to choose and is currently on the Republican presidential ticket), as my significant other pointed out, there’s some serious hypocrisy at play here. I mean, John McCain and Sarah Palin don’t believe women have a right to choose. It’s absolutely absurd for the campaign to emphasize the fact that Bristol “made this decision,” and then push for policies that take away that choice.

Ann is right on the money. It’s hypocrisy to suggest that this 17-year-old girl made the right choice when the whole idea of choice is so beyond any Republican position right now. Other women should be denied any choice as to whether they continue with their pregnancies, but Bristol Palin should be congratulated for exercising the choice that would be denied her if her mother was elected? That’s fucked up.

I’m glad that Ann also brought up Cara’s great post from last week on the discussions surrounding Sarah Palin’s “choice” not to abort her son, Trig, who was born with Down’s Syndrome. Here’s another case where Palin was congratulated for choosing to continue with the pregnancy, even though under a McCain/Palin administration, she would deny all of us that same choice. As Cara said,

You know what we often say about how conservatives care a whole lot about fetuses but very little about actual children? Well here’s your example. It’s almost as though they think that Palin became pregnant and gave birth to a child with Down Syndrome simply to please them. And the thing is that if they really believe their rhetoric, the answer was obvious, so obvious in fact that Palin didn’t really have a “choice” to make. Only now, because it’s convenient, they want to acknowledge that the decision of whether or not to abort after getting news that your child will be born with a disability is a difficult one, simply so that they can point and say “but look at her, she searched her soul and then did the right thing — so should all women!” They don’t want women to have a choice, but then want to praise this particular woman for the choice that she did make.

Cara and Ann make great points. As a pro-choice woman, I believe that my uterus is mine and mine alone, and I am grateful to be living in a country (not the U.S.) that upholds my right to decide what is best for me and mine. At least in this country I am judged to be intelligent enough to make these decisions for myself, without needing a Sarah Palin telling me what I should and shouldn’t be doing. It’s hypocrisy, then, for the Republicans to be congratulating these two women on their choices not to terminate their pregnancies when Palin doesn’t believe she or her daughter should have that choice in the first place.

And let me agree with another point Cara raised; while Palin’s “choice” to have a baby with Down’s Syndrome has been congratulated by the right-wing for being an example of her pro-life family values, this is not a choice that only “pro-life” women make! It is ridiculous to suggest that all pro-choice women would all immediately choose abortion if faced with the same amnio results. Pro-choice doesn’t mean pro-abortion; it means pro-choice. It means supporting safe and accessible reproductive health care for women, whatever your politics. Many pro-choice women choose to continue with pregnancies even when faced with abnormalities like Down’s. The point is, they have the freedom to make that choice according to what works for them. I don’t know why Sarah Palin should be held up as a great pro-life role model for having a baby with Down’s Syndrome when there are a hell of a lot of pro-choice women who do the same, and when she wouldn’t have a choice anyway if she got her own way. Under a McCain/Palin administration, all women would be forced to continue with all pregnancies.

Isn’t that a frightening thought?

I find it very creepy that Palin is against abortion even in the case of rape or incest. In response to being asked what she would do if a man raped her daughter, she answered, “I would choose life.” Drew Westen at The Huffington Post puts it like this:

Palin apparently even believes in forcing teenage incest survivors and rape victims to bear their rapists’ babies…the position she and others on the right have articulated gives every rapist the right to pick the mother of his child. That position is tantamount to a Rapist’s Bill of Rights, which privileges the rights of rapists and child molesters over the rights of their victims. Those are McCain-Palin’s “family values,” and they are not mainstream American values.

Thank you, Drew Westen, for pointing out how sick Palin’s values really are, and for once again bringing the point home: pro-lifers hate women. Sarah Palin hates women. Sarah Palin hates me.

Welcome to your Republican Vice-Presidential candidate, America. This could be your future.

*Update: Check out Rebecca Traister’s great piece in Salon on this same topic.

“It’s a little hard to take. In the big picture, Keith, I think this is a Dan Quayle choice. I think it’s great to have a woman on the ticket, but I think Sarah Palin as this specific woman on the ticket, is a bit of a laugh-out-loud choice.” – Rachel Maddow

She’s never actually used the word Shiite in a sentence before. She’s never had to. She’s never given any thought whatsoever to nuclear proliferation. She’s never had to. She’s never thought about Israel, Russia, Korea, or Iran. She’s never even thought about Mexico. So, what HAS she thought about? I mean, what has she thought about that’s going to directly affect you and me if (yes, God forbid) she has to slip into the role of the most powerful leader on the face of the planet? Well, we know she’s given a lot of thought to your uterus. Hell, I think about your uterus all the time and nobody should ever elect me to any office.

Dude, it’s clear what else she’s thought about: drilling for oil and shooting polar bears. But federal budgets and foreign policy and defense spending and nukes, nope. I guess she still has 64 days to figure this stuff out.

I can’t wait to watch Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow respond to McCain’s pick. That’ll make my weekend.

“Why have you forsaken me, Governor?”

McCain probably thinks he’s done a great thing, putting – gasp! – a woman on the Presidential ticket. Ooh, look, we’ve got a person with a vagina here, folks! A vagina that produces children! And she’s pretty, too! And she’s not uppity, either! She’s one of them good ladies! Welcome, Sarah!

Here’s one word the Republicans need to consider: tokenism. Palin actually celebrates being compared to Margaret Thatcher, calling herself the “Iron Lady of the North.” Check it out on the Palin for VP website. (John Rentoul of The Independent caught this first). It’s as if the Republicans think we can’t tell two women apart. Hillary Clinton may not be a radical, but she’s sure as heck no Margaret Thatcher.

Here’s my problem with Palin as VP pick: I suspect McCain’s team chose her because she’s a woman, and only because she’s a woman. I suspect they think that disgruntled Hillary supporters and people on the fence will look at this woman and say, “wow! glass ceiling!” and vote for her. McCain just doesn’t get it. Palin will not work for women, she’ll work against them. So she has five kids – well, that’s nice. But she supports policies that hurt other people’s kids. She supports policies that will destroy the very environment that her kids will inherit. She supports policies that hurt women, including other mothers. She may be a woman, but she’s still a Republican. Is she supposed to make me feel better about voting McCain? Do they really think I’m that stupid?

While we’re here, I wonder if Palin has any comment on a) McCain calling his wife a “trollop” and a “cunt;” b) McCain volunteering his wife as a contestant in a bikini contest a few weeks ago; and c) McCain cheating on his first wife after she was in a car accident. Let’s not forget that McCain has a really shitty position on birth control – although Palin probably agrees with him on that one. Nice attitude towards the ladies, eh?

The choice of Palin as VP candidate is insulting to women. In fact, the entire Republican ticket is insulting to women. You can’t cover up misogyny with a pretty face, dudes.

There are some good discussions on this going on at Feministing, Pandagon and Feministe. Go check ‘em out!

The native community alleges the government hasn’t ensured the necessities of life — including water — are available on the reserve. According to the statement of claim, the federal government has not funded a well upgrade or installed pipe necessary to carry water, so the band must continue to truck supplies in from a nearby community.

The statement also suggests programs by the Indian and Northern Affairs Department to reduce hunting and fishing have resulted in substantial changes to the Ermineskin way of life and diet.

These changes have led to a “calamity” consisting of “overwhelming” diabetes, gangrene and kidney disease, alleges the statement of claim.

The Hobbema reserve faces massive challenges, including serious gang violence, on top of the challenges that are all too common on Indian reserves in Canada. In May CBC’s The National aired a 20-minute documentary on Hobbema called “One Bullet Too Many.” It’s a devastating portrait of this struggling community. The Canadian Government needs to bear its share of the responsibility for these troubles and live up to their promises to provide health care and support for Hobbema. Good luck to the Erminskine band in their campaign for justice.

[See other CBC news stories on Canada's Aboriginal communities here.]