Sarah Palin Confesses to Abortion Thoughts

Sarah Palin spoke to an adoring crowd at a right-to-life dinner in Indiana on Thursday night. Her talk, covered by some cable news networks, was more personal than political. She confessed for the first time that she had fleetingly thought of having an abortion when she learned that her son, Trig, would be born with Down syndrome.

She said that she was on a trip out of state when she received the result of the amniocentesis test. “I thought, No one knows me here…. no one would ever know.”

“Plus, I was old,” she continued. “And I thought, ‘Very funny, God. My name’s Sarah, but my husband’s not Abraham, he’s Todd.'” At 44, she said, she had a hard time imagining changing diapers again, not to mention “putting down the BlackBerry and picking up the breast pump.”

She also worried that she would not love the child enough. “Believe it or not, I didn’t even know what a baby with Down syndrome was going to look like or feel like … I had to ask that my heart be filled up” with feeling for her unborn son. But everything changed the moment he was born. “My heart overflowed. I felt a love I had never felt before. He’s brought amazing, surprising happiness; he’s the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

Palin also promoted Alaska in her speech. She pointed out, on the day after Federal income taxes were due, that “Alaska is the only state in the nation with a negative tax rate, no income tax, no state sales tax, no state property tax.” She said she wanted to keep it that way because “I believe our families and small business can spend the money they earn better than the government can.” She also noted, repeating–and joking about–one of her most famous lines of the campaign, “You can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.”

In her home state, Sarah Palin is having considerable trouble with the legislature. While she was speaking in Indiana, they rejected her pick for attorney general. Nine Republican lawmakers joined all of the legislature’s Democrats in a 35-23 vote against confirming Anchorage lawyer Wayne Anthony Ross to the state’s highest legal post. Ross was opposed by native groups and has been criticized for making offensive remarks about women and gays. Palin complained that his rejection was based on the “politics of personal destruction.”

At the right-to-life dinner, Palin, dressed all in black and looking thinner than she did during the fall campaign season, talked about her crazy year. Her son shipped off to Iraq, her daughter told her she was pregnant–and she ran for the vice-presidency. “I borrowed a few clothes and had a couple of sit-down interviews–oh, those went real well–and soon I felt the need to provide Tina Fey with some job security,” Palin said.

Would she do it again? “I have a feeling,” she declared, right after taking the podium, “that I will leave here with new energy and inspiration, and I will re-start my engine.”

Sarah Palin = Right to Choose