Sarah Palin has donated almost a million dollars to Planned Parenthood during the past couple of weeks. How has the Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential nominee a) found the time, considering how busy she was, boning up for the big Joe Biden debate or b) found the motivation, considering her ultra pro-life stance? She hasn't, of course. This sum of money has been donated in her name by literally thousands of people across the nation, responding to a viral e-mail of unknown origins.
When the e-mail came to Illinois Times, we called the national Planned Parenthood's New York office to ask how much Palin had raised. Surprisingly we got referred to Pam Sutherland, right here in Springfield, who just happens to be chair of Planned Parenthood's federal political action committee.
"We were all caught by surprise. All of a sudden we started getting money," she says. The donations were small — $5, $10, maybe $15, but they added up to $750,000 by late last week, Sutherland says. "It's been remarkable to us," she says. "Whoever started this e-mail, it went everywhere, every state in this country, and we've been receiving donations from almost every state."
