FREAK OF THE WEEK: Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin

This week, the FredBlog shines its freaklight on Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor and former vice-presidential candidate who can’t seem to tell the difference between pro-choice and pro-life.

I know, I know, Sarah Palin is way too easy a target. But this past week, she made the same politically expedient mistake that many on the right make – either purposefully or out of ignorance – in order to score points with social conservatives.

Palin, in her first appearance in the lower 48 since losing last November’s election and being banished back to Alaska, went to Indiana to speak at the Vanderburgh County Right-to-Life Banquet. With about 3,000 attendees, it’s reportedly the largest such annual event in the nation. (Quelle surprise it’s in Indiana!)

As part of her rambling speech, Palin actually told a touching and heartfelt story about the time she found out she was pregnant with her youngest son – and that he would be born with Down Syndrome. The experience not only tested her faith, she said, but tested her commitment to anti-choice politics.

When she found out, “That blew me away, it rocked my world,” she said, according to published reports. “… It was a time I asked myself, was I going to walk the walk?” She was out of state at the time, and “just for a fleeting moment I thought, ‘No one knows me here; no one would ever know.’ … Then I understood why some people would think they could change their circumstances, just take care of it. … [My husband and I] went through some things a year ago that’s helped me understand a woman and a girl’s temptation to make this go away.”

Now, I do not criticize Palin at all for agonizing over what must be an incredibly difficult decision. And I certainly do not criticize her for choosing to bring her youngest son into the world. (Frankly, I think she made a wise choice.)

However, I do criticize her for coming to understand why a woman would choose to have an abortion and yet still come down on the side of the government prohibiting a woman from making that choice.

I criticize her for contemplating what are her legal choices, and yet still wanting to take one of those choices away from other women.

And I criticize her for making the choice that was right for her and her family, while wanting to force that same choice on every other woman in a similar situation.

In essence, the position she outlined in her speech is best described as pro-choice: She weighed her options, and made a choice. I applaud the choice Palin made. But how dare she want to take that same freedom away from other women.

Whether or not Palin is confusing the issue purposefully – or is just too stupid to realize what she’s doing – her followers are eating it up. Attendees of the Indiana event quoted in the media rallied to Palin’s side even more so after hearing her speech.

Palin and her lemmings have every right to speak out against abortion. They have the right to encourage those who find themselves in Palin’s situation to, as they say, “choose life.”

But they do not have the right to use Palin’s choice as a weapon to take away that choice from others.