I know, I know, I know. I don’t want to get sucked into slicing and dicing Sarah Palin because this is not a political blog. But since this is a health related issue, and one that has been making the rounds across the media, I decided that I would mention it.

Sarah Palin and rape. The woman does not believe rape victims should be allow to abort the fetus of their attacker, and now it seems that she actually cut funding for services to rape victims. Under Sarah Palin’s administration, Wasilla cut funds that had previously paid for the medical exams and began charging victims or their health insurers the $500 to $1200 fees. Now is that a compassionate Christian woman or what? Or I suppose that Palin is of the mold who thinks that women who get raped are promiscuous, or that they somehow “deserved” what they got. But whatever the reason, Palin’s action is cruel and unjustified, particularly in a state that is flush with oil billions, and has gold pouring from its coffers.

Palin’s handlers have denied that she had anything directly to do with this action. But according to an article at the Huffington Post, that’s not quite the story:

The Palin rape kit billing controversy has made its way from OfftheBus all the way to CNN. In her story on the controversy, Jessica Yellin claimed to have found no evidence in city records that Sarah Palin was aware that sexual assault victims were being billed for forensic testing. However, recently released budget documents show that Sarah Palin directly shifted the cost of the rape kits from the police department to the victim in her budget for fiscal year 2000. Given that the CNN article quotes a former city council member as saying “Palin would review each department’s budget line by line,” even if an underling wrote up the actual budget, she knew about the funding shift, and still signed off on the budget.

The article is interesting and gives exact data which connects Palin to this action. Not just heresay or rumors. And of course, the McCain/Palin handlers have not responded and refused to comment.

As a nurse, female, and human being, I find this act beyond heinous. Considering that Alaska has the highest rate of rape in the nation, and that despite the oil bubbling in the ground, many Alaskans live below the poverty level, do not have health insurance, and paying $1200 for a rape kit is beyond their means. For the life of me, I can’t imagine how any woman in the country could vote for Sarah Palin. Or any nurse, especially those of us who have dealt with rape victims.

It really makes me cringe to think that Palin considers herself a Christian, but then, I guess her brand of Christianity is similar to the one that George Bush believes in.