According to a variety of sources, the hospital where Sarah Palin is scheduled to appear at a benefit for a Canadian cancer institute performs abortion procedures regularly. Additionally, they have death panels, at least according to the criteria Palin's handlers used to insinuate her persona into the U.S. health care debate last August.Here's part of the analysis done at Think Progress on this:
Palin might be surprised to learn that the hospital she is fundraising for runs counter to her professed beliefs:
– St. Peter’s Hospital is a public hospital within the national Canadian healthcare system. In Palin’s worldview, universal, government-insured health care is “socialism.”
– St. Peter’s Hospital performs abortions. Palin, a staunch anti-choice zealot, has protested outside of abortion clinics and has refused to denounce abortion clinic bombers as terrorists.
– St. Peter’s Hospital, through its Centre for Studies in Aging, offers “advanced directives.” Palin tried to derail health reform earlier this year by falsely labeling advanced directive reimbursements as “death panels.”
Last month, Canadian comedian Mary Walsh asked Palin if she had “any words of encouragement for the Canadian conservatives who have worked so hard to try to diminish that kind of socialized medicine we have up there.” Palin, clearly duped by the performance, responded that Canadians should rid themselves of their public health care system and take a privatized approach:
PALIN: Well, my answer was too keep the faith. My answer was to keep the faith. Cause that common sense conservatism can be plugged-in there in Canada too. In fact, Canada needs to reform its health care system and let the private sector take over some of what the government has absorbed. So thank you, keep the faith.
Maybe Palin will use the speech to further recommend to Canadians that they overthrow their socialist, death panel-driven, abortion factory-enabling health care system. Maybe she'll just give a nice cancer fighting speech, citing a lot of anecdotes of how people can conquer the disease. Maybe she'll bring bongos and a big string bass. Who knows?