One of the main reasons Conservatives in New York revolted against the GOP’s choice of D. Scozzafava as their candidate, was because of her position on Abortion. Some Republicans assert that the Hoffman Revolution is about the economy, yet the majority of objections in articles and calls to Talk Radio centered, primarily, on the Republicat’s NARAL rating and her reception of the Margaret Sanger Award, both reflecting her position on Abortion. It is because Sarah Palin is profoundly Pro-Life that she understood the extent of the GOP travesty in asking Conservatives to violate their moral convictions by voting for a woman whose position on these core issues was the polar opposite of their own. While tacticians like Gingrich tried to brush these “secondary social issues” under the rug, Sarah did not. This is a good day to reflect on the very personal way that Sarah Palin brought the issue of Life to the 2008 Campaign.

For those invested in a Culture of Life, two statements made by Barack Obama during his campaign were particularly heart-stopping. The first was when he glibly responded to Pastor Rick Warren, during the Saddleback Interviews, that making statements about Roe V. Wade was, “Above his pay grade.” The second was when he shared with Planned Parenthood supporters that, should his own daughters ever “make mistakes,” he would not want them to be “punished with a baby.” Chilling death-sentence for any Obama grandchildren conceived out of wedlock.

Sometime in the Spring of 2008, Bristol Palin made, to use Obama’s expression, “a mistake.” While she secretly harbored the acute anguish of all young women who struggle in this circumstance, Bristol Palin’s pregnancy included a rare nightmarish aspect, her mother was the Governor of Alaska.

That Governor, Sarah Palin, had been Governor for less than a year when she learned that she, herself, was pregnant. Becoming the youngest and first female Governor of Alaska came at the high price of two hotly contested campaigns. Sarah knew that many doubted a mother could deal with all the challenges of the highest elected office in the state, in addition to those of raising a family, let alone doing this while pregnant, then as the mother of a new baby. In December, Sarah and Todd were told that the child they alone knew about, would probably be born with Down’s Syndrome.

Both mother and daughter, in her own way, faced a moment of truth – so aptly named because such a moment reveals the extent to which one is willing to live according to personal convictions. In such moments, women faced with difficult pregnancies realize two absolutely certain things-that the baby, whose tiny heart beats as their own, will radically change their lives, and that they can decide to bring this baby into the world, or stop its heart forever.

Long before Bristol, Sarah, and their babies were the stuff of which liberals’ campaign dreams are made, these human beings were poised, for a moment, at the center of the most important question facing our Country, the question of the value of a human life. These two women possessed the most “understandable, justifiable” reasons given for a woman to kill her baby.

Though she was only seventeen, Bristol could hardly be ignorant of the fact that her mother’s status would turn her own, highly personal situation into a media frenzy. Bristol knew that she could abort her baby. She knew that a procedure taking less than two hours could save her from intrusive, public attention.

Sarah Palin knew that she could abort her baby. There were already whispers of a Vice Presidential nomination…and the baby, if he lived, would suffer so much…is it even right to bring a child “like that” into a world in which he will have nothing but pain? A short vacation, a very secret clinic far away, and no one would ever know. The baby wouldn’t suffer, and she could go on to a promising career.

Sarah and Bristol Palin reminded America that a baby is more important than anything else. A baby who is not planned, or not wished for, or whose coming is going to disrupt a busy, “important life,” or a baby who has special needs, all these babies are our greatest national treasures, and rejecting the easy option to kill them, in order to avoid the consequences of motherhood, is not above anyone’s pay grade. It is the minimum wage we should all be willing to pay, if we wish to be a lasting civilization.

Both Sarah and Bristol paid dearly for their decisions to bring their babies into this world, especially Bristol. There was no “bravado,” in her public demeanor once her pregnancy became the property of the networks, and yet her clear choice of life for her baby was a thunderous testament to her baby’s value, and consequently, every baby’s value. To his mother, he was worth whatever the cost.

Sarah’s decision to bring a child with special needs into this world argued that babies do not derive their value or right to life from the entertainment or prestige they procure for their parents. A child who will never go to a prom, or dance classes, or an Ivy League school, or even run around the bases, has the right to live out the precious life given to him or her by God. The little face Sarah Palin was proud to show to the nation, as she brought Trig with her on the campaign trail, was bright with the promise of human love that is the crowning achievement of any life worth living.

Except for a few, perverted late night talk-show hosts, jokes about Sarah and her daughters are getting stale. More than that, the personas invented by the media, that of President Obama, as well as Sarah Palin, are becoming porous, allowing the real people to slip through, in spite of the media. While other differences between the candidates were given more attention, none was more essential than their differing views of the value of a baby, of human life. For Barack Obama, Bristol Palin’s baby, Tripp, was a mistake that Planned Parenthood could have solved in a couple of hours. For the Palin family, both babies were brought into the world because their mothers chose life, life that is worth every personal sacrifice, life that is never a punishment, but always a gift.