Sarah Palin Compares Elderly Care In Healthcare Bill To Abortion

More details of Sarah Palin's speech to the Wisconsin Right To Life group are coming out - including these excerpts from Jonathan Martin of Politico:

Sarah Palin rallied thousands of abortion opponents Friday night with a a stark warning that the same philosophy that allows abortion rights could soon be invoked to allow the government to cut off health care for the elderly or children with special needs.

Speaking to a fund-raising banquet of Wisconsin Right to Life, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee asserted that if policy-makers don’t believe a child in the womb is valuable, then “perhaps the same mind-set applies to other persons.”

“What may they feel about an elderly person who doesn’t have a whole lot of productive years left,” Palin asked an audience of about 5,000 who paid $30 each to hear her speak in an airplane hangar-like exhibition hall at the Wisconsin state fairgrounds just outside of Milwaukee. “In order to save government money, government health care has to be rationed… [so] than this elderly person that perhaps could be seen as costing taxpayers to pay for a non-productive life? Do you think our elderly will be first in line for limited health care?

“And what about the child who perhaps isn’t deemed normal or perfect per someone’s subjective measure of their use or questionable purpose in the eyes of a panel of bureaucrats making our health care decisions for us,” she continued.

Her warning was couched in repeated rhetorical questions about what might happen when laws are made by those she portrayed as having an insufficient appreciation for the sanctity of all human life.

“We have to think this through,” she said. “We have to get to the truth of this matter, health care reform.”

The fund-raiser was advertised as closed to media coverage, but at least three reporters, including one from POLITICO, attended simply by purchasing a ticket like other members of the public.

The line to get into the venue here stretched over a half-mile outside the building and a local conservative talk radio station even marked the event by printing t-shirts that welcomed her to the city, noted the date of her appearance and deemed her: “America’s Conservative Conscience.” The anti-abortion group that hosted the event sought to raise money by including pledge cards on every chair that included an offer to become part of “Sarah’s Rogues” by giving $1,000 to the group in exchange for an autographed copy of her forthcoming memoir, “Going Rogue: An American Life.

Palin had remarks prepared but frequently wandered off-script to make a point, offering audience members a casual “awesome” or “bogus” in discussing otherwise weighty topics.

As in: “It is so bogus that society is sending a message right now and has been for probably the last 40 years that a woman isn’t strong enough or smart enough to be able to pursue an education, a career and her rights and still let her baby live.”

Palin also offered flashes of the traits that endear her to many conservatives. Offering great personal detail, she relayed the story of how she came to find out that her infant son, Trigg, had Down Syndrome. She confessed to being scared and said that she and her husband, Todd, turned to God to prepare them.

After years of advocating against abortion in theory – what she called “preaching to the choir” – Palin said she was presented with the stark reality of what to do with a special-needs baby.

“I am thankful to have been asked to walk the walk,” she said.

Palin also included a few less personal, but as compelling, flourishes in her remarks, citing Pope John Paul II (never a bad idea in a heavily-Catholic part of the country), referring to scripture (John 16:13) and noting that such feminist pioneers as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton had opposed abortion (she called them “foremothers”).

She also demonstrated a politician’s ability to connect with a local crowd, relating that her grandmother was born in Chippewa Falls, her dad had played high school football with Packers great Jerry Kramer and, with an audience that likely watched a lot of Fox News, noted her relationship with the network’s talk show, Wisconsin native Greta Van Susteren.

Further, Palin talked with ease about the abortion issue, touting polling this year that showed a majority of the country opposing the procedure, recalling successful ad campaigns (“Choose Life”) on the issue and casting her own opposition to it in terms familiar to the movement.

Palin didn’t mention President Obama by name, but did take a shot at him for opposing an abortion-related measure as an Illinois state senator and more than once mocked his catch phrase.

"Let's talk about change we can believe in," Palin said. "Friends, a majority of Americans identify as pro life, and thank God for that."

She reserved her toughest critique for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, eliciting boos from the crowd at the mention of the speaker’s name. Palin urged Pelosi to allow House members to vote on an amendment that would bar any taxpayer funds from being used to fund abortion.

“We need to make sure she hears the message that she will held accountable if she does not let this at least come to a vote of her colleagues so they can have their voice be heard,” Palin said.

In a closing exhortation, she urged the audience, “Don't ever let anyone to tell you to sit down and shut up.”

After she concluded her remarks – and presented the organization with an over-sized, $1,000 check – Palin signed autographs for some of the few hundred people who surged toward the dais.

Alissa Maerzke, 12 and wearing a “Palin 2012” t-shirt, was elated that she got the former governor’s signature.

After collecting a congratulatory hug from her mom, Maerzke recounted that she asked Palin if she was going to run for president. “She just smiled,” said the girl.

In the line on the way into the event, a gentleman wearing a Harley-Davidson fleece pull-over and jeans joked to his friends that he was going to ask Palin to marry him, summing up his devotion this way: “She thinks like I do, she’s absolutely gorgeous and Democrats are afraid of her – what’s not to like?”