Sunday, September 14, 2008

juan cole on sarah palin

Blogger and Middle East Affairs expert, Juan Cole has a couple of interesting sets of remarks on controversial Republican Vice-Presidential Candidate, Sarah Palin.

Palin on World Affairs: Just not Ready for Prime Time reflects on Palin's interview with Charlie Gibson.

Eyewitness: "No Way it was Rhetorical." addresses Sarah Palin's repeated inquiries into removing "objectionable" books from the public library (along with a few other aspects of her administration in Alaska.

And finally, in a piece which was recently published at Salon.com. Cole reviews Palin's positions on abortion, censorship, homosexuality and creationism and considers the question: What's the difference between Palin and Muslim fundamentalists? Lipstick?

For a while now I've been thinking of trying to put together a post on the range of Islamic views regarding abortion (which is actually more liberal than the standard Catholic/Evangelical position). Until then, I'll just share what Juan Cole wrote:

The GOP vice-presidential pick holds that abortion should be illegal, even in cases of rape, incest or severe birth defects, making an exception only if the life of the mother is in danger. She calls abortion an "atrocity" and pledges to reshape the judiciary to fight it. Ironically, Palin's views on the matter are to the right of those in the Muslim country of Tunisia, which allows abortion in the first trimester for a wide range of reasons. Classical Muslim jurisprudents differed among one another on the issue of abortion, but many permitted it before the "quickening" of the fetus, i.e. until the end of the fourth month.

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