STEPHEN FRY

Sarah Palin is the ultimate hockey mom - Ice cold and needs hitting repeatedly with sticks

(Shamelessly stolen from Sandi Toksvig's News Quiz script 3 October 2008)

Actually I think the whole debates can best be summed up by a friend of mine who up until then was still debating herself as to who to vote for.

"Joe Biden did a good job. Sarah Palin was very supporting of John McCain and clearly thinks we should vote for him. However, Sarah...I was kinda hoping to learn what you stood for and what you would do if McCain died".

God I hope my absentee ballot comes soon so I can send in my vote and feel smug until election day when McCain wins.

She's horrible, horrible, horrible! She does not stand for freedom at all. It's a joke. I'll never understand right-wing attitudes. It seems so backwards thinking to me. Trying to restrict other people's lives because they've got some kind of stupid issue with them and want to ruin things for everyone else. How selfish. If they don't like it they should just turn the other way no one's forcing them to watch. Pro-life is anti-choice and anti-woman. When I say I'm pro-choice I'm talking about not only the right to have an abortion but the right to choose to keep the child. Pro-choice isn't about forcing women to have abortions it's about the right to choose what's right for you and no one else should have control over that. It makes me sick thinking there are horrible people who want to cut back on people's rights like LGBT rights. That's just wrong. We should all have the same human and civil rights. Your sexuality doesn't make you any less of a person or citizen than anyone else.

Well said - I absolutely agree. The woman is evil.

Did anyone catch this quote during the VP debates?


"So do you support gay marriage?"

Biden: Barack and I don't support gay marriage, but we do believe that the relationship between a homosexual couple and a heterosexual couple are essentially the same thing.

"And you, Senator Palin?"

Palin: Uhh... WHAT HE SAID.

Fantastic.

There's another debate tomorrow evening between Obama and McCain, and I hope Obama can kick it up a few notches because the prospect of McCain and Palin in our White House is too nauseating for me to think about for the next 4 weeks. As for voter registration and turnout, they're already predicting that it will be much higher because of Obama, and because Americans are fed up with this administration. I'm voting for Obama, but I wish he had picked Hillary to be his running mate.

My voter registration card is attached to the front of my monitor.

I've thought about abortion a lot - I grew up when it was illegal and saw the results of two illegal home-administered ones.

The first - I was in hospital myself when this woman was wheeled in. ER was full so they pulled the curtains round her and patched her up. The Docs and nurses went in clean, and came out covered in blood. It was clear she nearly died. When I saw her, she was so pale her freckles stood out in 3D. Hospital policy was to NEVER report such abortions to the police, but to patch the woman up, and then treat her with distain. Other patients knew this (I was only 17) and rallied round her to cheer her up. She had 5 kids, hubby was on the dole, and she just couldn't face number 6. The moral support those older women gave her was phenomenal, and it was the first time I ever saw true feminism in action.

The second was our next door neighbour. She had 8 kids, and one day sent for my Mum urgently. She was having a 'miscarriage' she told Mum, but Mum knew she'd 'done something' because she was scared of Mum getting the Doctor. Mum sent for him anyway, and before he went in, she warned him not to dob 'or else'. He said "We never do, or women would be too afraid of us, and would die". She lost a lot of blood, but survived. The Doc recommended she have her tubes tied, which she did.

I agree there is something bad about late term abortions, and I would prefer they all be done in the first trimester when we can be certain that the foetus is non-sentient. But it is essential that women have choice, or many women would die, become infertile, suffer pain and fear, or have unwanted babies born into misery.

I lost a baby at 26 weeks - the placenta had failed and I simply went into labour and it was stillborn. I was heartbroken, and the nurses told me it was a perfectly formed and beautiful little boy. For this reason i hate the thought of late term abortions, but sometimes there could be mitigating circumstances. (I ended up with two healthy sons later)

Choice is the key. No-one is going to force anyone to have one, after all.

BUt Palin would have the US return to those dangerous times for women, that I remember with horror.

Yipes, Joan, that sounds horrendous. I'm sorry to hear about your experiences with abortions, they both sound awful. I think the stories emphasise the need for extensive (and early) sex education - something that the republicans don't support... Net result: lots of unwanted babies.

I think you fully understand my point. My problem with the full pro-choice line is the question whether the baby has a right to life say at 24 weeks, over-ruling the right for the lady to choose? Soupy Twist's information about Germany's early limit suggests that they have managed to sidestep it by making the limit very early, before most people think the foetus even has a chance of sentience and certainly couldn't survive if born at that stage...

I'm so dubious about the late abortion. There was a case of Charlotte Wyatt in the UK who was born prematurely at 26 weeks (was in the news for a different ethical decision - the choice of doctors vs the choice of parents to withdraw treatment) who apparently is now alive and 4 years old... makes me wonder whether at the later stages of termination, we have little children in the uterus, and not just a bunch of cells...