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This from an op-ed in today’s US News & World Report:
Mountains of controversy are swirling around Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s strange policy of forcing rape victims to pay for their own rape kits while she was mayor of the now-infamous town of Wasilla.
The most interesting take I’ve found is posted by Alaska blogger Shannyn Moore who relates the following:
“I sat with a rape victim during the “harvesting of evidence”.
Mascara smeared eyes stared blankly out from a cave of shame. “We’ve
got swimmers,” announced the forensic tech in the lab next door. My
friend didn’t look surprised. In her 60’s, she was still asked if she
felt the need for emergency contraception. Surviving the process would
have only been compounded and made worse with an itemized bill;
victimized twice courtesy of Sarah Palin and the city of Wasilla.”
Interestingly, there’s no report on whether Wasilla police were also
obligated to bill the families of murder victims for the going rate of
evidence-gathering or the victims of pedophiles for the cost of
analyzing a crime scene, which indicates that at Palin’s behest the
only Wasilla residents (or tragically unlucky visitors) forced to pay
out-of-pocket for being the victim of a violent crime were WOMEN WHO’D
JUST BEEN RAPED. Classy! I wonder if they called it the
Slut-Had-It-Comin’ Surcharge!
Fortunately, one shocked Alaskan lawmaker drafted a bill that
directly addressed the Wasilla Police Department policy, making it
illegal for an Alaska law enforcement agency to bill the victim of a
sexual assault or the victim’s insurer. Said then-governor Tony Knowles:
“We would never bill the victim of a burglary for
fingerprinting and photographing the crime scene, or for the cost of
gathering other evidence. Nor should we bill rape victims just because
the crime scene happens to be their bodies.”
I don’t know what’s more humiliating, being a rape victim in Pakistan (rapist goes free, victim goes directly to jail), or a gang-rape victim in Saudi Arabia (sentenced to 200 lashes),
or a rape victim in Sarah Palin’s jurisdiction: terrified, mortified,
violated — shaking and spread-eagled in emergency room stirrups, and
getting fucked anew.
I’m all for seeing a woman in the White House, but you, “feminist, pro-woman” Sarah Palin, are just one more dick.
