Bush, Palin, And Birth Control

An editorial of 11/9/08 in the Houston Chronicle takes on the Bush Administration for an effort to enact numerous destructive regulatory changes before the Obama Administration assumes power on January 20, 2980. Any proposed change must be published by November 20, 2008 because the public must be given sixty (60) days to comment on any change in regulation before it goes into effect. The editors explain

A Department of Health and Human Services rule change would deny federal funds to family planning organizations and clinics that refuse to hire staffers who will not provide birth control to patients upon request. The regulation would also define forms of birth control as abortion, allowing physicians and others a legal basis for declining to provide family planning counseling that includes birth control techniques.

In the same vein,when asked in October by People Magazine about "abstinence or contraception," Governor Palin replied

....But we have not been ones to say that students, should not know what preventive measures are all about. I've been taken aback by some criticism that mainstream media has thrown my way saying, Oh, what a hypocrite she is and she's now learned her lesson because she's been against sex education in the schools. And I'm like, when? Where? When have I ever said that there should be no sex education taught in our homes or even in our schools?

As the Governor herself might say, gosh, that's just so great. Except that during her (successful) campaign in 2006 for Governor of Alaska, Mrs. Palin had this exchange during an Eagle Forum Alaska questionnaire:

Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?

Palin: Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.

It is ironic, but perhaps logical, that the most anti-abortion rights figures tend to be the individuals most hostile to birth control. Think the "starve the beast" GOP attitude toward government: cut its size, thus its effectiveness; the public becomes disenchanted with government and votes for the anti-government party (GOP). And with birth control: discourage birth control; more unwanted pregnancies, and thus more abortions; the base is outraged.

Paranoid? Maybe. Far-fetched? Possibly. But most of all, it's a two-fer, a chance to criticize both Sarah Palin and George W. Bush in one post.