The XX Factor: What women really think.

Did Sarah Palin Almost Abort Trig?

At a pro-life event in Indiana last night, Sarah Palin seemed to be telling the audience that for a moment, she considered aborting Trig:

There, just for a fleeting moment, I thought, I knew, nobody knows me here. Nobody would ever know. I thought, wow, it is easy. It could be easy to think maybe of trying to change the circumstances. No one would know. No one would ever know.

Of course, anyone who's ever been to a certain kind of church knows that this is a lead-in to a personal narrative, known as a testimony. The testimony follows an established formula, similar to a VH1 Behind the Music special: First things are going well, and then a moment comes when the subject flirts with sin, and their faith is tested. In the end the person triumphs and their faith is redeemed.

So in some sense it's "true" that Sarah Palin thought about it, but also true that there was no other possible outcome than she was going to ultimately decide to "walk the walk" and not just "talk the talk," or she wouldnt be telling the story.

What struck me is how her journey from regret to difficulty to acceptance sounds remarkably similar to the plot of 17 Again (as described by Willa and Dana here).