Planned Parenthood Is the Winner: Thanks, Sarah!

Parental discretionary donors
By Shuchi Saraswat / October 9, 2008

How Sarah Palin generated over $1 million in donations to Planned Parenthood

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.

Thanks to Mariann Wizard / Read all of it here. / Boston Phoenix

The Rag Blog