Sarah Palin ‘thought about abortion’

Campaigners on both sides of the US abortion debate have been reacting over the weekend to the surprising admission by Sarah Palin that she briefly considered having an abortion - though she didn't use the word - after learning that her unborn son Trig was going to suffer from Down's syndrome.

Addressing a 'right to life' banquet in Indiana, the Governor of Alaska and vice presidential candidate for the Republicans in 2008 revealed that she learned that her fifth child had a chromosome abnormality while she was on an out-of-state trip. "There, just for a fleeting moment, I thought...
nobody knows me here. Nobody would ever know," Palin said.

She said that for "a fleeting moment" she considered her options. "I had to ask myself, 'Was I going to walk the walk or was I just going to talk the talk'," Palin told her audience. "It is easy to think maybe of trying to change the circumstances."

Palin was using her "moment of doubt" to illustrate her support for always carrying pregnancies to term. She said she prayed during her pregnancy for the strength and compassion to love a baby with an extra chromosome. "The moment he was born, I knew that moment my prayers had been answered."

Nevertheless, for those on both sides of the debate who remember Palin saying during the election campaign that she would not support termination even in the case of a 15-year-old girl raped by her father, her remarks came as a shock.

Elizabeth Shipp, political director of NARAL Pro-Choice America, told the Washington Post: "If I didn't know any better, I'd say Governor Palin sounds remarkably pro-choice."

Pro-life campaigners have generally reacted warmly to Gov Palin's speech. Steven Ertelt, president of Right to Life of Wyoming, wrote in an e-mail: "Sarah Palin excites the pro-life community because she understands, unlike President Obama, that human life should be protected and that a pregnancy is not a 'mistake'."

David O'Steen, executive director of the National Right to Life Committee, said Palin's remarks proved "that she is very forthright, very honest. It also shows she's a person who, when tried and tempted, will make the right decisions."