Sarah Palin Tells Women's Group Washington Should Beware of 'Mama Grizzlies' Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said Friday that "mama grizzlies" will help Republicans win this November's election, sweeping away the agenda of President Obama and the Democrats.
Addressing an anti-abortion group, the potential 2012 presidential candidate also said she understood how some women might consider abortion, citing her own experiences as the mother of a child with Down syndrome and the parent of an unwed teen mother. Last year, Palin said that "for a fleeting moment" she considered having an abortion when she learned of her son Trig's prognosis.
Palin said Friday that abortion is morally wrong and women should carry a fetus to term:
"It may not be the easiest path, but it's always the right path," she said.
Palin, the Republicans' 2008 vice presidential nominee, used a speech to the Susan B. Anthony List to remind activists why they rallied behind the Republican ticket and why they should work to stop Obama's agenda.
She said Obama is "the most pro-abortion president ever to occupy the White House" and asserted that the health care law would fund abortions.
In fact, Obama's health care law would not allow federal dollars to pay for elective abortions. Roman Catholic hospitals and organizations of Catholic nuns backed the measure. U.S. Catholic bishops and major anti-abortion groups opposed it, arguing that federal dollars could end up paying for abortions.
Palin challenged Republican women -- "mama grizzlies," she called them -- to help the Republicans "take this country back" and elect anti-abortion lawmakers. A grizzly is a bear. She praised female leaders of the Tea Party movement and invoked her 2008 acceptance speech where she compared herself to a pit bull.
"You don't want to mess with moms who are rising up," Palin said. "If you thought pit bulls were tough, you don't want to mess with mama grizzlies."
Tea party activists believe that government spending and influence should be limited. The movement's name is taken from the Boston Tea Party, a 1773 protest in which activists in the then-British colonies in America boarded ships and threw their cargo of English tea into Boston Harbor in a symbolic act of protest against taxes.
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