| | Palin, Biden answer questions about Roe v. Wade
Alaska gov. evasive as Couric corners her on high court decisions
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden were asked by CBS' Katie Couric to explain their views on the historic Roe v. Wade case and other Supreme Court decisions in a preview clip released this evening.
Previous installments of Couric's interview with Gov. Palin aired Tuesday night.
"Why do you think Roe v. Wade was a good decision?" Couric asked Sen. Biden.
"Because," he said, "I think it's as close to a consensus that can exist in a society as heterogeneous as ours.
"What does it say? It says in the first three months, the decision should be left to the woman. Then, the second three months, Roe v. Wade says...then the government has a role, along with the woman's health. They have a right to have some impact on that. In the third three months, they say, the weight of the government's input is on the fetus being carried...I think the Liberty Clause of the 14th Amendment offers a right to privacy."
Biden disagreed with the Supreme Court's ruling on the Violence Against Woman Act, which allocated new funding to investigating and prosecuting violent crimes against women and opened a legal avenue for a battered woman to sue in civil court, even when no criminal charges were filed. The latter part of the 1994 law was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2000.
Asked why she thought Roe v. Wade was a bad decision, Gov. Palin said "I think it should be a state's issue, not [the] federal government mandating yes or no on such an important issue.
"I'm in that sense a federalist, where I believe that states should have more say in the laws of their lands and individual areas. Now, foundationally, also, though, it's no secret that I'm pro-life -- that I believe that a culture of life is very important for this country. And, personally, that's what I would like to see further embraced by America."
"Do you think there's an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution?" Couric followed up.
"I do," Palin said, "and I believe that individual states can best handle what the people within the different constituencies in the fifty states would like to see their will ushered in in an issue like that. [sic]"
"What other Supreme Court decisions do you disagree with?" Couric asked.
"Of course, in the great history of America there have been rulings that there's never going to be absolute consensus by every American, and...there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So, you know, going through the history of...America...there would be others, but--"
"--Can you think of any?" asked Couric.
"Well, I would think of any, again, that could best be dealt with on a more local level [that] maybe I would take issue with, but...you know, as a mayor, and then as a governor, and even as a vice president, if I'm so privileged to serve, [I] wouldn't be in a position of changing those things, but in supporting the law of the land as it reads today."
On the separation of church and state, Palin said that Thomas Jefferson wanted to make sure "that government didn't mandate a religion on the people, and Thomas Jefferson also said 'Never underestimate the wisdom of the people.' And the wisdom of the people, I think, in this issue, is that...people have the right and the ability and the desire to express their own religious views, be it on a very personal level, which is where I choose to express my faith, or in a more public forum, and the wisdom of the people, thankfully, ingrained in the foundation of our country is so extremely important. And Thomas Jefferson wanted to protect that."
"The best way to look at it," Senator Biden said, "is look at every state where that wall is not built. Look at every country in the world where religion is able to impact on the governance. [In] almost every one of those countries, there's real turmoil. Look, the Founders were pretty smart. They'd gone through several hundred years of wars--religious wars. They were in the midst of religious wars in Europe, and they figured it out: the best way to do this is keep the government out of religion. They took religion out of government, but they didn't mean religion couldn't be...in the public square."
This video is from CBS' Evening News, broadcast October 1, 2008.
Download video via RawReplay.com
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