A Deeply Moving Speech by Pro-Life Gov. Sarah Palin

By Dave Andrusko

Editor's note. Please send me your comments at daveandrusko@gmail.com.

Her remarks lasted only 30 minutes, but in that half-hour pro-life Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin demonstrated all the qualities that make pro-lifers want to hug her the instant they meet last year's GOP vice presidential candidate. She was droll but funny, gubernatorial but folksy, and charismatic but one of us. And very inspirational! And very gutsy.

The occasion was the Vanderburgh County Right to Life fundraising dinner held at the Centre in Evansville, Indiana.  This annual event always draws huge crowds. Last night, there were 2,180 in attendance at Palin's speech and another 2,500 were able to watch her on a live feed.

I was able to watch the entire riveting speech on YouTube. I would highly recommend that you sit down and listen closely. www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiG72pOls0c

Some press accounts were amazed by, others snarky about, Palin's candid discussion of the many extraordinary challenges of the last year or so, including finding out that she was pregnant at 44 and later that her baby would have Down syndrome. She already had four kids, a demanding job, and a husband whose job was hundreds of miles away. On top of that her oldest son was about to deploy to Iraq and Palin's then-17-year-old daughter told her she was "going to be a mom. Talk about change!"

Before she gave even more details, Palin added, "There has been great purpose in what I went through this past year." I'll quote at length from the speech as delivered. If there is a dominant theme it would seem to me to be that women and girls are stronger than they may have been led to believe and that Palin's faith was instrumental in a year of almost impossible demands.

Palin told her audience that she found out at 13 weeks that Trig would have Down syndrome and "that blew me away, it just rocked my world. And to be honest with you I had a heck of a time being able to put my arms around the idea of first of having a baby at 44 and then knowing that the baby would have some challenges. It was serious time of testing. … It was a time where I had to ask myself, 'Was I going to walk the walk, or was I just going to talk the talk?'"

She then explained that she had first found out she was pregnant while attending an out-of-state conference. "Just for a fleeting moment, I knew, nobody knows me here. Nobody would ever know. I thought, wow, it is, it could be easy to think maybe of trying to change the circumstances and no one would know, no one would ever know.

"Then when my amniocentesis results came back, showing what they called abnormalities. Oh, dear God, instantly I had an understanding, for that fleeting moment, why someone would believe it could seem possible to change those circumstances--just make it all go away and get some normalcy back in life--just take care of it."

Not even Todd knew she was pregnant. "No one would know," she said, and then added, "But I would know."

A moment later, she lightened the atmosphere: "Plus, I was old," she quipped. "And I thought, 'Very funny, God. My name's Sarah, but my husband's not Abraham, he's Todd.'"

These were "truly less than ideal circumstances, perhaps, but I had just enough faith to know that my trying to change the circumstances wasn't any answer."

Growing increasingly more reflective, Palin said, "I came to believe that Trig's prenatal test was me being asked if I would trust and believe and, more importantly, live out what I had been saying for years about the pro-life movement and the purpose and the sanctity of every life, no matter the circumstances. 'I'd always been pro-life,' I said.

"So we went through some things a year ago that now lets me understand a woman, a girl's temptation to maybe try to make it all go away, if she has been influenced by society to believe that she is not strong enough or smart enough or equipped enough or convenienced enough to make the choice to let the child live. I do understand that what these women, what these girls go through in that thought process."

The most revealing moments for me were when Palin talked about trying to research what it meant for a child to have Down syndrome.

"It just seemed liked when I tried to open the book, like this was something for someone else, someone stronger and maybe more compassionate than I, to be able to give this child what he would need, to better handle the circumstances. I wasn't sure if my heart could hold what this baby would need.

"So I prayed that my heart would be filled up. What else did I have? I had to call upon my faith and ask that my heart be filled up. And I'll tell you the moment he was born I knew for sure that my prayer was answered. And my heart overflowed with joy." Thunderous applause.

"And I tell you this for a reason. I felt a love that I had never felt before and compassion that I didn't even know was there. Trig is a miracle … . He is the best thing that has ever happened to me. And I want other women to give this a chance and experience this, this that can make their lives better, not inconvenienced or burdened."