This is an edited position and rebuttal. I've edited both to remove invective, specious claims that require the respondant to have information that is clearly not available (the mood or inner mindset of Obama or Palin, for instance). I've also removed some of the more turgid rhetoric. WA is not a forum for campaigning or for debate, although we do encourage multiple ideas as long as one person does not erase the other person's work.
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While mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin fired the existing sheriff who did not make victims pay for rape kits. She then appointed the sheriff who required rape victims, or their insurance companies if they had health insurance, to pay for their rape kits.
It was not until the State of Alaska stepped in and passed a bill that forced Wasilla to pay for rape kits that Palin and her sheriff stopped charging rape victims. Alaska was in danger of losing federal funding because the U.S.A. passed a law that required that rape kits be paid for by the public. Palin and her sheriff had been violating federal law.
See Related Links for the sources of the above facts.
The fabricated story makes the claim that the Alaskan Legislature was forced to pass a law in 2000 in response to Wasilla's policy of charging rape victims for the rape kits.
The definitive research on this unwarrented attack was published by Slate Magazine online
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor/archive/2008/09/26/debunk-a-bunk.aspx
Lauree Hugonin, director of the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, spoke at several committee meetings. She noted in response to Smith's comment that while he had not found an instance where law enforcement has forwarded a bill, "hospitals have. It has happened in the Mat-Su Valley, on the Kenai Peninsula, and in Southeast, and that is why the bill is being brought forward."
... in six committee meetings, Wasilla was never mentioned, even when the discussion turned to the specific topic of where victims were being charged. (The Matanuska-Susitna Valley, the surrounding region-the most densely populated region of the state, and roughly the size of West Virginia-is mentioned in passing.)
Furthermore, many of these articles insinuate that rape and sexual assault were major problems in Wasilla, by citing the fact that Alaska has a high rate of sexual assault. However, during Sarah Palin's years as mayor of Wasilla, 1996-2002, official FBI major crime statistics show only THREE rapes in Wasilla---one in 2001 and two in 2002.
Another version of the story claims that the police chief in Wasilla opposed the legislation in 2002 because it prevented him from charging rape victims. However, this interpretation requires that the reader extrapolate that position from facts not in evidence. According to the Alaskan newspaper, The Frontiersman, the police chief said,
"In the past weve charged the cost of exams to the victim's insurance company when possible."
and he also is quoted in the article as saying,
"I'd like to see the courts make these people pay restitution for these things, Fannon said...Fannon said he intends to include the cost of exams required to collect evidence in a restitution request as a part of a criminals sentencing."
The police chief never says anything about charging the victim directly. Indeed, no one can find any evidence that any victim was ever charged. See the conclusion of the following article, which provides additional facts proving this be a lie:
In preparation to attend a hearing and support the bill, one of the state's top law-enforcement officials found no case of a rape victim ever being charged. And roughly a month after 30 Democratic lawyers, investigators, and opposition researchers, not to mention reporters from every major news agency in the country,landed in Alaska, we still have no instances to consider.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODA1YWM5ZjM2ZTU5ODliZTY2NTczMGUwZWYwNTVlMTQ=&w=MA==