You've gotta love Planned Parenthood Action Fund! (For other ads, check out their YouTube channel.)
Transcript is after the jump.
Gretchen: I just didn't think it would happen to me. I was drugged and raped.
Announcer: Under Mayor Sarah Palin, women like Gretchen were forced to pay up to $1,200 for the emergency exams used to prosecute their attackers. In the Senate, John McCain voted against legislation to protect women from these same heartless policies.
Gretchen: That is something to me that's unthinkable. It scares me to death.
VO: Planned Parenthood Action Fund is responsible for the content of this advertising and urges you to get the facts.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Planned Parenthood ad takes on Palin/rape kit charge.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/9597
The great thing about this is the ad was probably paid for with money raised from the threat of a Palin vice-presidency.
$802,000 says Politico
Yes.
A small dose of sanity at a time when the whole world seems to have gone mad.
I know someone did a debunking of the "debunking" around the rape kit charge issue, but I can't find the link anymore. Does one of you great Feministing commenters/writers have that link?
That's pretty simple and to-the-point.
Another blog that I read fairly often is The XX Factor on Slate.com. I like their writing staff a lot.
Anyway, recently one of their contributors posted links to blog articles claiming that the Sarah Palin rape-kit story is based largely on assumptions and is actually false. The new story seems to be that hospitals were trying to charge insurance companies for the kits, and it's highly-likely Sara Palin didn't know about it. As far as I can tell by glancing through their archives, only one of the contributors has mentioned this, and they are the only blog/news source I read that has brought it up at all. I think The XX Factor is a reliable source, but why haven't I seen it anywhere else?
If this rape-kit story is a "myth", I want to know so I don't falsely accuse Sarah Palin of this--certainly, there are plenty of legitimate issues to have with her, I don't need a false one to buffer the list. If the refutation of the story is what's false, I want to know that, too.
But I have no idea how to start fact-checking this, which is why I am coming to you guys. 1) There's a lot of collective intelligence and know-how here, and I'm hoping there are those among you who would know how to properly going about vetting this. 2) If this rape-kit story is false, I figure you guys would want to know that as much as I do.
So if anyone can support or debunk the claim that the rape-kit story is false, please help me out!
Here are the links to The XX Blog posts on the issue, and the sources they cite:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor/archive/2008/09/26/debunk-a-bunk.aspx
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODA1YWM5ZjM2ZTU5ODliZTY2NTczMGUwZWYwNTVlMTQ=&w=MA==
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor/archive/2008/09/24/one-nasty-palin-rumor-debunked.aspx
http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/274003.php
My problem is that none of those seem to link to their original sources that I can see. Maybe it's that those documents aren't available online?
Again, any help in sorting this out is greatly appreciated!
I just previewed this and it really long! Sorry about that!
Jezebel just did a detailed debunking of the rape kit "debunkers" (which was featured in the weekly reader):
http://jezebel.com/5054308/debunking-the-sarah-palin-rape-kit-debunkers
Aha! Thanks, RedPersephone!
I don't read Jezebel that often, but I am on Feministing a few times a week--surprised I missed the Reader link to this. Thanks again!
jess: you bet. We need to spread this around as much as possible, because the people I know who are voting for McCain/Palin are certainly not getting this info from any of the media they normally consume. (Faux News, anyone?)
Nice to see something productive going on...makes me feel a little better
Thanks, RedPersephone, that's exactly what I was remembering having seen!
The facts on Palin's rape kits from factcheck.com:
In 2000, complaints about this practice in rural cities including Wasilla prompted the Alaska Legislature to pass a bill preventing alleged victims of sexual assault from being billed for forensic tests. It was signed into law by then-Gov. Tony Knowles. Palin had been the mayor of Wasilla for four years at the time, and a local paper reported that the Wasilla police chief, Charlie Fannon, defended the practice, saying he had billed women and their insurance companies for these tests rather than placing a "burden" on taxpayers:
Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman (May 23, 2000): "In the past we've charged the cost of exams to the victim's insurance company when possible. I just don't want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer," Fannon said.
According to Fannon, the new law will cost the Wasilla Police Department approximately $5,000 to $14,000 a year to collect evidence for sexual assault cases.
Palin wasn't quoted in any news coverage at the time. More recently, after she was picked to be Sen. John McCain's vice presidential running mate, her spokeswoman Maria Comella told USA Today that the governor "does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test." Comella declined to answer questions about when Palin found out about the practice and what, if anything, she tried to do about it. Fannon, who is no longer the chief of police, has not spoken to the press either.
Eric Croft, a former Alaska state representative who sponsored the 2000 legislation, told CNN that "I find it hard to believe that for six months a small town, a police chief, would lead the fight against a statewide piece of legislation receiving unanimous support and the mayor not know about it." But Croft, a Democrat, says he does not recall discussing the issue with Palin at the time.
- Jess Henig
Sources
Dilanian, Ken and Matt Kelly. "Palin's town used to bill victims for rape kits." USA Today, 11 Sept. 2008.
Goode, Jo C. "Knowles signs sexual assault bill." Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, 23 May 2000.
Yellin, Jessica. "Palin's town charged women for rape exams." CNN.com, 22 Sept. 2008.
Yep. She may have not sent the bills out personally, but she sure as hell knew about it and did nothing at all.
The facts on Palin's rape kits from factcheck.com:
In 2000, complaints about this practice in rural cities including Wasilla prompted the Alaska Legislature to pass a bill preventing alleged victims of sexual assault from being billed for forensic tests. It was signed into law by then-Gov. Tony Knowles. Palin had been the mayor of Wasilla for four years at the time, and a local paper reported that the Wasilla police chief, Charlie Fannon, defended the practice, saying he had billed women and their insurance companies for these tests rather than placing a "burden" on taxpayers:
Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman (May 23, 2000): "In the past we've charged the cost of exams to the victim's insurance company when possible. I just don't want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer," Fannon said.
According to Fannon, the new law will cost the Wasilla Police Department approximately $5,000 to $14,000 a year to collect evidence for sexual assault cases.
Palin wasn't quoted in any news coverage at the time. More recently, after she was picked to be Sen. John McCain's vice presidential running mate, her spokeswoman Maria Comella told USA Today that the governor "does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test." Comella declined to answer questions about when Palin found out about the practice and what, if anything, she tried to do about it. Fannon, who is no longer the chief of police, has not spoken to the press either.
Eric Croft, a former Alaska state representative who sponsored the 2000 legislation, told CNN that "I find it hard to believe that for six months a small town, a police chief, would lead the fight against a statewide piece of legislation receiving unanimous support and the mayor not know about it." But Croft, a Democrat, says he does not recall discussing the issue with Palin at the time.
- Jess Henig
Sources
Dilanian, Ken and Matt Kelly. "Palin's town used to bill victims for rape kits." USA Today, 11 Sept. 2008.
Goode, Jo C. "Knowles signs sexual assault bill." Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, 23 May 2000.
Yellin, Jessica. "Palin's town charged women for rape exams." CNN.com, 22 Sept. 2008.
Yep. She may have not sent the bills out personally, but she sure as hell knew about it and did nothing at all.
Let's consider the "facts", shall we?
1.Sarah Palin fired Irl Stambaugh, the police chief of Wasilla for "not supporting the administration".
2.The practice of charging rape victims for forensic exams was not in place under Stambaugh.
3.Said policy was enacted by Palin's appointed replacement, Charlie Fannon.
4.Sarah Palin ran for mayor as a "pro-life candidate", despite the fact that the position of mayor is typically not, in American politics, something that highlights one's partisanship.
5.Sarah Palin has stated her belief that life begins at conception, and as such, the morning-after pill is a form of abortion. Sarah Palin is well-known to oppose abortion even in the case of rape.
6.Wasilla, at the 2000 census, had a population of 5,469 residents. Palin's spokeswoman has stated on the record that Palin had no knowledge of the rape exam policy.
7.In that same year, the Alaska state legislature attempted to convince Alaskan towns that had enacted the rape-kit policy to reverse it. The only town that had resisted the urging of state lawmakers was (surprise) Wasilla. This led to the state enacting legislation to ban such policies.
I'm sorry, if you can't put two and two together... sooner or later, something will emerge, perhaps some past statement to the press in which Palin acknowledged/defended this policy. Hopefully we won't have to wait until after the election, in the rare instance Moosolini and McCain do win...