Sarah Palin's Vagina: To Whom Does It Belong?

I originally had absolutely no intention of delving into this, but the topic of Babygate, as it's being called, is exploding all over the Internet. The rumor is that Sarah Palin's youngest child, Trig, is actually her grandchild. Fingers are pointing to Sarah's teenaged daughter Bristol as being the mother of the boy, claiming that Sarah faked her pregnancy in order to cover up the fact that her unmarried minor child had a baby.

Now, I'm no fan of Sarah Palin. I'm a sex-positive feminist, which means that my values are pretty much the exact opposite of her anti-contraception ideology. But the vitriol that people are spewing towards her is disturbing. It has been suggested that her decision to board a plane while in labor with a pre-term Down Syndrome baby was criminally negligent; this is not true. There are no laws on the books dictating that all pregnant women must go directly to the hospital once labor begins, just as there are no laws dictating that women in labor must have a C-section if it's the only way to get the baby out safely. Hell, if a woman in labor (high-risk pregnancy or no) wants to pick up some fast food and rent some movies from Blockbuster first, it's her right.

A woman in labor is still a woman first; her rights to bodily integrity don't end when her water breaks. A woman in labor has the right to do the same boneheaded shit that any non-pregnant person wants to do, whether we agree with her judgment or not, and that includes not getting one's ass to the doctor as soon as one should, or not taking one's medication, or not undergoing a surgery that will probably do more good than harm. If it's not criminally negligent for my non-pregnant coworker to procrastinate seeing her doctor about the pain in her knees for 8 months, it's not criminally negligent for Sarah Palin to put off going to the hospital for 12 hours.

I won't argue against anyone who says that her decision was not the best she could have made (although she claims that she had her doctor's blessing to do it), but it was not criminal. She broke no laws.

I've seen many people speculate that Sarah did what she did after her water broke because she wanted her special-needs son to die, which is vicious speculation at best. No one knows what was going through Sarah's head the day that her son was born, and we have no way of knowing, so I wish that people would just give her the benefit of the doubt. If she's pro-life enough not to abort a Downs Syndrome baby, then I'd like to assume that she's pro-life enough to not deliberately endanger him on the day of his birth.

Another speculation I've seen repeated a few times makes the assumption that Bristol is indeed Trig's mother. There are some who are claiming (without a lick of evidence, mind) that Bristol's father impregnated her, which is another reason why the family would want to keep the pregnancy secret: so that Todd Palin wouldn't be outed as an incestuous child rapist. This rumor is so upsetting that I don't even really know what to say about it. How can people so blithely suggest (with no reason to believe so other than they want dirt) that Todd is a rapist, that Bristol is a victim of incest, and that the best and most compassionate way to deal with it (if true) is to drag them both into the national spotlight and turn it into a media circus?

This entire hullabaloo bothers me because pregnant women are already all-too-often treated as children. You see it all the time. Pregnant women are frequently refused service when they try to buy a six-pack of beer or a bottle of wine (even if they never had any intention of drinking it themselves), are lectured in public by complete strangers who have decided that her decision to consume sushi or soft cheese is everyone's business, and are demonized for taking any perceived risks (whether they are actual risks or just unfounded paranoia) at all because a woman's failure to be the perfect mother (even before birth) is too often considered to mean that she can't be a good mother at all.

Imperfect mother = unfit mother. Despite the fact that it's common knowledge that no one is perfect, perfection is absolutely expected of the pregnant woman or mother. Any sign that she may not be putting forth 110% during every moment of her pregnancy (like the day she forgot her pre-natal vitamin or the time that she treated herself to a medium steak dinner) is a sign of absolute failure. I've seen people suggest that because of Sarah's Palin's decision to board that plane, she is an unfit mother and that all of her children should be taken from her. The fact that her children are healthy and seem to be pretty okay is besides the point; apparently the family needs to be broken up and the children displaced - to do what? To punish Sarah? It obviously wouldn't be done in the best interest of the children, so punishment is the only reason I can think of.

People have demanded that, along with her records proving her health, she should turn over any record of how many pregnancies, miscarriages, stillbirths, and abortions she's had. The public has a right to know exactly what's gone on in Sarah Palin's reproductive systems over the course of her lifetime, even if it's got nothing to do with her health or ability to serve as VP, should McCain win the election. I can't tell you how much this sense of entitlement to another woman's uterus horrifies me.

I understand that the stakes are high in this election. Trust me, I'm all too aware of how the outcome of this election may effect my life and the lives of those I love. But Sarah Palin's vagina is none of my business, it's none of your business, it's none of the world's business. Her ability to mother is not what's at question here (and the very fact that it was the first thing questioned after the VP announcement is telling; after all, I haven't heard of any witch hunts questioning the abilities of Obama, Biden, or McCain to be good fathers while they run the country, but there are PLENTY of people asking if Palin can be a national executive and a mother at the same time); her ability to to be Vice President needs to be the focus.

Sarah Palin's vagina, Sarah Palin's womb, and Sarah Palin's children all belong to Sarah Palin, unless proven otherwise. So let's just leave them out of the ruckus, shall we?