Is Sarah Palin Truly Pro-Life?

By Dada Vedaprajinananda

Someone who was practically unknown a few weeks ago has now become one of the most important political figures in the United States. That “someone” is of course Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska, who is now the Republican candidate for vice president.  Palin’s candidacy has energized the Republican Party, especially heartening those on the right wing who adore her small-town lifestyle and social views, particularly her anti-abortion stand which is called “pro-life” in the U.S. But is Governor Palin truly pro-life, in the wider sense of the term. In my personal opinion, she fails to live up to this ideal.

Without getting into the big issue of whether abortion is moral or not or whether it should be allowed, I have to say that it is admirable that Governor Palin didn’t opt to abort her child who was recently born with Down’s syndrome and that she and her family are now showering unconditional love on that child.   To love and protect vulnerable living beings is what the term “pro-life” should be all about.

However, there are other parts of Governor Palin’s lifestyle that are not pro-life.  We are told that she is a great hunting enthusiast.  She can go out and kill a moose or a caribou and carve it up into steaks and feed it to her family.  Is not a moose a vulnerable creature, a creation of God who, like a human, also feels pleasure and pain and wants to live? If someone has so much reverence for life, how can she go out in the middle of the forest and kill a creature that is not doing harm to anyone?  10,000 years ago this is how humans lived and such killing was necessary to sustain life, but can this kind of hunting be morally justified today? Does any religious scripture say that it is right to kill an animal for sport? And if this kind of killing does gets scriptural support, can this scripture be considered a valid guide to human conduct?

But there is more to Governor Palin’s lifestyle and ideas that fly in the face of the pro-life label. Along with her love of hunting comes her support for the “gun lobby” in the America. These are the people who fiercely oppose legislation that would put more restrictions on gun ownership.  Many of the supporters of the gun lobby live in America’s rural areas and use their guns for hunting.

While I don’t agree with the whole idea of hunting, I have to say that at least the guns in the rural areas are more likely to be used to kill animals than human beings.  But the loose regulation of gun ownership also means that a lot of weapons are available in the inner cities where the victims are not moose, caribou, deer or rabbits but innocent human beings caught up in the criminal cross-fire.  If someone is pro-life, shouldn’t she be concerned with the slaughter than is going on the nation’s city streets and possibly start thinking about ways to make sure that gun ownership is better regulated?

As you can see, I have raised a number of moral questions that need answering and I hope that during the course of the campaign, some of them will be addressed.

PS: Since writing this post some days ago, I’ve thought more about the issue and even wrote a song about it which appears  at this link.