Polarizin’ Palin has people everywhere opening their pocketbooks to the pro-choice movement’s benefit. A viral e-mail, of unknown origin, urged people who disliked the Alaska governor’s under-no-circumstance view on abortion to donate to Planned Parenthood, in her honor. The e-mail has been circulating for more than a month and, as of October 6, has generated 38,000 donations — at least two-thirds of them from first-time givers — to the international organization, totaling more than $1 million.
The latest high-profile boost to the “In Honor of Palin” campaign comes from singer/songwriter Gretchen Peters, who was outraged when Palin was brought on stage at a rally after Thursday’s vice-presidential debate to the strains of Martina McBride’s 1994 recording of Peters’s “Independence Day,” whose lyric centers on a victim of domestic abuse. On her Web site, gretchenpeters.com, Peters pledges to donate future “Independence Day” royalties to Planned Parenthood, on behalf of, you guessed it, the GOP veep nominee, whom Peters refers to as “a candidate who would set women’s rights back decades.”
This will be a hard one for the McCain campaign to ignore. Planned Parenthood offers to acknowledge generosity by mailing a card to the person in whose name the donation is made. The cards noting the Palin donations will be mailed to “McCain for President” headquarters, as per donors’ requests, starting this week.
Beliefnet.com blogger Rod Dreher has suggested that readers counter the Planned Parenthood donations by contributing to a pro-life center, citing specifically the abortion-alternative organization CareNet. His twist? Donate on behalf of Palin’s six-month-old son, Trig. According to CareNet, the organization has not seen a spike in donations since Dreher’s post.
Donations to Planned Parenthood, dedicated to Sarah Palin (or anyone else), can be made online at https://secure.ga0.org/02/pp10000_inhonor. CareNet does not accept in-name donations, but regular donations can be made online at care-net.org.
