Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Mayor Palin Billed Rape Victims For Post-Assault Exams

Under Sarah Palin's administration as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, the city cut funds that paid for medical examinations used to gather evidence from rape victims. Under Palin, victims or their health insurers were charged the $500 to $1200 cost of the exams.

read more | digg story

5 comments:

Ani said...

"Annie Oakley" is SUCH a feminist...any Clinton-supporting woman who's thinking of voting for McCain/Palin to spite Obama should have her head examined.

Eric said...

And yet - this example of her leadership - has gotten very little publicity. NYT, for example, has never examined the case. The documentation is pretty clear, as this article details.

Ani said...

Not quite true, I know I read it there, but it wasn't one of the front-page articles:

http://www.nytimes.com/
2008/09/26/opinion/26fri4.html

Well worth a watch if you haven't seen it (Keith Olbermann):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rK3huC6tYGc

Ani said...

Nicholas Kristof treats it today:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/opinion/09kristof.html

Can This Be Pro-Life?
[...]
There is something about reproductive health — maybe the sex part — that makes some Americans froth and go crazy. We see it in the opposition to condoms to curb AIDS in Africa and in the insistence on abstinence-only sex education in American classrooms (one reason American teenage pregnancy rates are more than double those in Canada). And we see it in the decision of some towns — like Wasilla, Alaska, when Sarah Palin was mayor there — to bill rape victims for the kits used to gather evidence of sex crimes. In most places, police departments pay for rape kits, which cost hundreds of dollars, but while Ms. Palin was mayor of Wasilla, the town decided to save money by billing rape victims.
[...]

Eric said...

Thanks!