Several liberal and “progressive” bloggers are gleefully pointing out the supposed hypocrisy that Sarah Palin represents because she believes in abstinence as a means to battle teen pregnancy.
“It didn’t work for her daughter, did it?”, they point out.
I won’t jump on the fact that they’re using a single point of reference to belittle a society-wide education plan, that’s neither here nor there. What I will question them on is if they believe that education is the be-all, end-all to combat teen pregnancy?
I ask, because on Page 25, (pdf, 6.7M, 145pp) of the State of Alaska, Department of Education & Early Development, Content and Performance Standards for Alaska Students (Revised Mar 2006) it says this under Skills for a Healthy Life:
7) understand the physical and behavioral characteristics of human sexual
development and maturity; and
8) understand the ongoing life changes throughout the life span and healthful
responses to these changes.
I’m guessing that abstinence isn’t the only piece of the system that failed in the case of Bristol Palin, eh?
Update: Damian is on the education theme too.
Cheers,
lance
I would rather someone raise a child than kill them.
The lefts way of 2 wrongs making a right so to speak.
This reminds me of the treatment Chelsea Clinton got.
I see…so married-Clinton getting a hummer, from someone NOT his wife, in the White House is OK, but the unmarried daughter, who isn’t even running for office, makes a mistake with her boyfriend and her mother gets pilloried for it? How is that supposed to work?
Also the blatantly obvious; if she had abstained, she would not be in this fix now. Clearly the problem arises from the lack of abstinence, not too much of it.
Hypocrisy is the tool that the left uses to attack standards of behavior. The belief of the left is that there can be no standards of behavior in society when any proponent of standards fails to live up to them. This is very simple thinking for those who claim to be the masters of “Nuance”. The left wants a society based on feelings, not standards.. this is a great dividing line between contemporary left/right. There is nothing interesting about claims of hypocrisy as it relates to public policy.
If you want McCain to win the presidency just repeat after me …
“Would this be an issue if Sarah Palin was a man?”
There are millions of Clinton supporters who are upset with the ‘sexist’ treatment that Hillary Clinton received at the hands of the Democrats and the mainstream media. Many of these women will see John McCain’s choice for VP as a positive, even if they consider it a transparent attempt to reach out to them, and if they start seeing the Democrats and Mainstream media giving Palin unfair treatment it might seal the deal.
By the way, Barack Obama is a result of an unmarried pregnancy. His mother married Barack Obama Sr. on Feb 2, 1961. Barack Jr. was born six months later on August 4, 1961. So, she was three months pregant before her marriage. The father left the family two years later.
Now, if the Left chooses to chastize Sarah Palin’s daughter for this, then why don’t they chastize Barack Obama’s late mother for this same action?
Then, the left is in error when they attack Sarah Palin for believing in abstinence – and her daughter becomes pregnant. It’s the mother who believes in abstinence; if Bristol chose not to accept this belief – that’s her choice. All the education in the world can’t determine someone’s choice.
How strange that leftists, who tout ‘freedom of choice’ expect that the mother must control the daughter.
“Now, if the Left chooses to chastize Sarah Palin’s daughter for this, then why don’t they chastize Barack Obama’s late mother for this same action?”
indeed
Nothing hypocritical about the left, on the other hand:
“If McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race and class war, fueled by a deflated and depressed country, soaring crime, homelessness – and hopelessness!”
Fatima can be reached at fameworksmedia@yahoo.com for all your journalistic race-baiting questions.
It isn’t as if children who get sex education at school implement all the proper decisions about sex all the time either.
The Left doesn’t want sex education taught in schools because the Left cares about teen pregnancy or teens getting STDs.
(which portion of sex ed can be taught by a child’s own parents)
That is just a pose.
The real reason the Left wants sex education taught in schools is because it gives the Left the chance to teach children that homosexuality and sexual techniques that a child’s parents might view as deviant are normal and mainstream.
(it’s about pushing Leftist values)
I find it pants-pissing hilarious the leftists that claim Obama-rama-ding-dong has ‘so much experience’. Huh? As a Senator he’s been lackluster to say the least. When he was a lawyer he handled but a handful of clients. While at Harvard he didn’t publish a single paper.
Oh wait, it’s when he was a ‘community organizer’ he received all he would ever need to know about navigating the world’s most powerful country.
I can just picture a much younger Barry Obama, leaning back in his office chair after retrieving the telephone number to the abortion clinic out of his Rolodex and passing it along to Shaniqua and Tyrone confident that he helped counsel them into making the right decision and chosing not to be ‘punished with an unplanned pregnaccy’.
I had a friend of mine comment to me this morning that somewhere right now Hillary Clinton must be swallowing Prozac by the handfull!
The Dumbocrats and their fellow travelers in the Leftosphere are doing the Republicans a huge political favour in flogging this story.
Obama’s campaign is supposed to be about ideas and his message is being derailed by the screaming-meemies like the Koz riff-raff.
It’s interesting how this is being treated differently by different outlets, even here in Canada. Paul Wells, ferinstance, apparently believes that the news about Palin’s daughter is a portent of doom for John McCain (check out his Macleans blog).
While I’ve enjoyed Paul’s writing in the past, I’m not so sure he’s called this one anywhere near correctly.
You stupid rightoids in your frenzied zeal always make the same annoying mistake.
You think all lefties are the same.
I’m a leftie and I don’t have any of those thoughts you think I’m supposed to have.
The young Ms. Palin should be left out of this, by you and everybody else. This is her family’s challenge and none of your business. So shut up and concern yourself with your own life!
It’s not about you, Ron.
Oh, and Ron? Not all “rightoids” are the same either (in fact, some of us aren’t even right-wing). A shame you can’t take your own advice.
Shut up righttoids!!!!!!!
An example of tolerance from a self described Liberal Leftie.
No surprise at all.
Oz said, “It isn’t as if children who get sex education at school implement all the proper decisions about sex all the time either.”
That was the point of the post Oz. That’s why I linked to the Alaska EED.
MM, yes, it is all about Ron. He’s exactly who I was thinking of when I wrote, “Several liberal and “progressive” bloggers…”
It’s always about Ron. Good posts, bad posts, left/right, Canadian/US/World. . .Ron, just Ron.
Liberal Ron says:
So shut up and concern yourself with your own life!
Thats what we keep trying to tell you leftards, smaller government and keep out our private lives. Do I see a conservative slowly crawling from that Liberal shell Ron?
Those who try to score political points on stuff like this, regardless of whether the subject is Obama’s mother or Palin’s daughter, are beneath contempt.
How many teenagers have you raised Lance? 1, 2…none? I’ve raised 2 daughters and believe me you can talk/plead/rage/cry until you are blue in the face and for the most part they will go ahead and do what they want. I know I did when I was a teenager and so did my friends. The more things change the more they stay the same, especially where teens are concerned.
Cheers,
kelly
Hey Ronnie,
Go get your shine box.
I agree with Kelly. Part of watching kids grow up is watching them test limits. Some limits are tested and broken without consequence, some limits result in injury when tested. At some point, they learn which limits are good to test, and which are dangerous, and they become adults.
PS. Think of it this way. Knowing that a stove is hot and that you should not touch it is valuable information. But there is no replacement for the experience of actually getting burnt.
Well the cluck clucking has begun. Read Sally Quinn’s article in WAPO. I saw her interviewed and the argument goes something like this
1) This wont play well in evangelical circles, I am not one and dont believe what they believe but women are supposed to be subservient to men and didnt you know that women cant be pastors in the Southern Baptist Church….(what this has to do with Brisotl Palin is beyond me
2) Well I have a leraning disabled child and I had to take a leave of absence from my well paid job at the Wapo and it was too much for me. 5 children, 1 learning disabled and 1 pregnant teen. This is a distraction if she was to be President.
I cant believe waht I am hearing, although she says this isnt about women working and having a career…clearly only childless women, single child women or women whose children have left home, no daughter please, can be VP and potentially president.
An upper middle class boomer snob…I could not believe my ears hearing this woman talk.
The question is NOT whether this would be an issue if Palin was a man but if it would be an issue if she was a Democrat.
I shake my head at this.
liberal ron – the reason we are commenting is because both Mrs. Palin’s last pregnancy and her daughter Bristol’s pregnancy have been the focus, the hysterical focus, of left blogs (Daily Kos), left opinion writers (Maureen Dowd), left talk shows (Wolf Blitzer at CNN, Colmes at Fox)…and I’ve given only one name in each category.
It’s many, many names in reality. The left has gone into full hysteria over these two ladies – with vicious, malicious attacks on their nature as women, as human beings,…etc.
So, your anger, Liberal Ron, ought to be directed to those people. Have you contacted them?
I think it’s an interesting structural change that has been set up by McCain. In the Democratic race, we had a clear racist and gender division. That was the basis of the choice. That’s a terrible thing to do to a country.
I don’t think that McCain’s choice of Palin was to enter this infrastructure of race/gender. People are suggesting he picked Palin to appeal to the demoralized Hillary voters. I wonder.
Instead, I suggest that his choice was to set up a new infrastructure: Washington vs non-Washington. His focus is that Washington needs to be reformed, and you can’t do it from within. So, Obama and Hillary, as Washington insiders, can’t do it. You need an outsider. McCain is defining his campaign, not on change [change to what?} but on Reform. And Reform comes from the outside. He picked Palin because she’s an outsider in every way.
Sarah Palin = Clarence Thomas
Despicable behavior on display by the left
What are the commies going to do when the sheeple wake-up? The long-term damage the left is causing to itself far out ways the benefits they might gain by winning an election. The Democrats are not mommies party after all 😛
So who will ask PMSH the A question in the debates. Maybe he will paraphrase Obama, with, I would not consider it a punishment to have a baby.
Even the trooper story has resurrected the story of what clinton had his state troopers do for him, and they had to keep it secret. They got him women.
McCain has just pulled interview with CNN because of their over the top attack on Sarah. Good for him, fun to watch Wolfe try to explain this.
Last night Neil Macdonald did a smear piece about Palin, complete with a shot of Kos Kidz incest page. Rather than condemning the idiocy and evil of it all, old Neil was helping to spread the lie. On your dime.
Sarah’s daughter may have failed the abstinence test, but consider the millions who pass it every Friday and Saturday night.
Not all young women will comply with the abstinence rule, but then a very large percentage of the population fails to comply with all kinds of laws and rules including murder.
This is a bad issue to pursue for the the Left. It’s a tempest in a teapot.
Sarah will be the next VP.
Sex is where babies come from. Why does anyone need to take a COURSE in that?
C’mon Kathy, you know the fairies “guys” on the left don’t get any, of course they need a class. Women like MEN(with stubble) not metrosexuals; therefore, I think sex ed. is the closest these pansies get to an actual uterus.
I wonder what the leftards would think if they were hung upside-down from a tree and turned into pinatas like they need to be???
Even Obama said to leave family out of it.
Nice to see they aren’t listening and dooming themselves to a backlash.
The campaign managements of leftwing parties operate on “lawyer” morality to a great extent. Thus they protect and excuse their client candidate for all faults and weakness of any type and attack his opponent(s) for anything real or imagined that they think will benefit him in the voting booth.
Therefore, to them, Palin’s pregnant daughter is a wedge issue to be directed at conservative Christians in the hope that McCain will lose their votes.
Nice. The end always justifies the means.
Who on this blog (or anyone else in the world for that matter) has ever had a sister, daughter, neice, cousin etc. that hasn’t been knocked up at 17 or earlier?
This issue in a non-starter. If the Lefties continue yammering on with this, they’re just going to alienate the Democrat voter base that actually consider the issues.
There is nothing wrong with Sarah and her decision to promote the message of abstinence. This situation also doesn’t make her a hypocrite either. Bristol, as her own individual, made the decision to have sex and is now dealing with the realities of becoming a mother.
I was taught the basics of reproduction in Grade 4 science. In grades 7-10 we were taught some more detailed sex education classes along with how the male/female reproduction systems worked as well as some preventative measures in regards to unwanted pregnancies and std’s. Even being taught sex education at such a young age, it didn’t stop some of my classmates from having unprotected sex, and it certainly didn’t stop some of them having kids by the age of 15 and throughout high school.
My parents always taught me that abstinence was the best option, especially at such a young age. BUT they also made it quite clear that if I wanted to have sex, then I’d be held fully responsible for ANY consequences and that no one else would be to blame. They also stressed the sacrifices that I would need to make if I were to be a father at such a young age.
I’m not a firm believer in only one option. I think that basic sex education should be taught along with the message of abstinence. But I don’t feel that it is right for the institutions to be handing out free birth control and contraceptives to the students. Parents also need to raise their kids to take responsibility for their own actions and not coddle them for their entire lives.
It doesn’t matter what you teach them. If these young teenagers want to have sex, they will. But we need to enforce the message that if they are going to make these adult decisions, then they will be treated like adults and will be responsible for the consequences.
I suppose it would all be much more palatable to the left if the Palin family simply announced that Bristol would receive a state-funded abortion.
I got my sex education in a Cathouse in Montana courtesy of my fellow crew members on a Medicine Hat Bow Island Rig.
Hell of an education!
And…who’s supporters are promising race wars if their candidate loses? Of course it’s the tolerent ones.
“If McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race and class war, fueled by a deflated and depressed country, soaring crime, homelessness – and hopelessness”
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/opinion/20080902_Fatimah_Ali__We_need_Obama__not_4_more_years_of_George_Bush.html
“…Palin’s pregnant daughter is a wedge issue to be directed at conservative Christians in the hope that McCain will lose their votes.”
I don’t know one conservative Christian who doesn’t have someone in their family who become pregnant out of wedlock. Not one.
This is not the wedge issue some Democrats and lib-left MSM think it is. I suspect that most “conservative Christians” are feeling very badly for Bristol Palin, seeing as her pregnancy is in the spotlight and being talked about all over the world. I suspect that most “conservative Christians” are saying to themselves, “I guess the Palin family aren’t much different than we are.” I suspect that most “conservative Christians” will vote for the McCain-Palin ticket.
When my kids were teens, I made it very clear to them that abstinence and not being sexually active was the best and least complicated way to reach their goals for the future. I told my daughters, however, that if they ever did become pregnant to, please, not have an abortion. I told them that their father and I would support them and their child every step of the way.
Fortunately, an unwed pregnancy never became a problem but if it had, I would not have regretted the advice I gave my daughters. As kelly has pointed out, you can talk to your teens until you’re blue in the face about all sorts of things. They are individuals with free wills and they are going to make decisions–some good, some not-so-good–for themselves.
Because I held up a high standard for my daughters (having also been very frank with them about the reproductive process and the risks of premarital sex and various contraceptives) I felt confident that even if they did “make a mistake,” they could never say to me, “But, Mom, you never told me.”
I agree with Chairman Kaga in that it’s not right for institutions to be giving out free birth control. When my oldest was in high school she was getting depo provera prescriptions from the school without my knowledge or permission. Of course now we know how dangerous that particular form of birth control is and should only be used if all else fails. I’m still trying to her to go for bone density testing.
Abstinence worked for me and my sisters, but then again, it worked for most that I grew up with. But, that was a different generation. Guess we didn’t have hormones.
My wife of 24 years is a former union member, and former Democrat, who, while hearing Sarah’s acceptance speech, stood up and declared
“I want to vote for her!”
Sent her money and bought bumperstickers- never seen that before, in all those years…
And the more mud the Left slings, the madder she gets.
I suspect she’s not alone in this.
Never in my life have I seen the democrats (and especially CNN) so angry. This Palin choice caught them completely off guard, and they’re scrambling. They now have to throw out the “McCain=status quo ; Obama=change” message. You can’t get more of a change than an Alaskan woman, who’s a DC outsider, who’s not a professional politician. This messes with the Obama script.
The whole experience issue becomes a bear trap that the Democrats are stepping into every time they mention it. “Obama, the least inexperienced choice” does NOT make for a good bumper sticker. And Dennis Prager said it well: it doesn’t matter what experience you have, what matters is the achievements. Other than getting an ivy league education, and writing a couple of autobiographies, what has he done? Most of his time as senator has been spent campaigning for president. McCain’s choice is brilliant. He’s like a poker-player going all-in: you wan’t change, I’ll give you change.
Now this issue with her kids is really going down the gutter, and a lot of voters are going to be disgusted with it. I watched the CNN coverage yesterday, and it seemed to be 70% Bristol, 30% Gustav. Never mind the 2 million people evacuated, the important issue is a teenager got pregnant. Larry King, Cafferty, James Carville… they were the angry white men. Unbelievable.
I suspect Palin will go positive with this, show us she’s human, she’s real. She needs to point out that the democrats are making a teenager’s mistake affect an election and the lives of 300 million people. Shame on them. The delegates wives need to throw Bristol a huge baby-shower. OK, maybe not, but you get the idea. Celebrate the choice of life, and move on.
I’d have to agree with the people that suggest teens are going to do what they want no matter how blue you turn as a parent, once teens get around seventeen life replaces the parent as the teacher anyways.
The important thing is that they know they’ll bear the consequences for their actions, and it’s no cake walk.
The lib-left are driving voters, who mightn’t have otherwise, to vote for the McCain-Palin ticket.
Like Malcolm Cross, I don’t know any family that doesn’t have someone who’s had an unwed pregnancy.
And I’m not sure where this crazy idea comes from that if you teach your children abstinence, they don’t know the facts of life: The two are not mutually exclusive. Abstinence simply is the route to take for young people towards a much less complicated life until they achieve their eucational goals for the future.
And, to add to my last comment, teenagers don’t always do what they’ve been taught is “the best way,” even when they KNOW that what they’re doing may lead to some unwanted consequences, a point that many commenters have made.
What hasn’t been discussed, and won’t be, is that there may be a back story beyond a simple knock-up. The time is right for a teenager “coming of age” to emulate a pregnant mother about to birth, or as a means to defy her mother’s decision to move away from her friends and family. Wouldn’t be the first teenage girl who attempted to scuttle family plans with a pregnancy. As the BIG ZERO (O for Obama) says, why would she want to be “punished with a baby?”
I suspect the birth of a Down’s child has been a HUGE wakeup call for young Bristol. If anyone needs a case for abstinence as a method of BC, Mother Palin unfortunately doesn’t have to go far to find one.
At the same time, her burden’s are the country’s gain: they have a VP in waiting who, when approached by the legions of parents with special needs, understands to her core what is needed, and what needs to be done.
The trash talking democrats should be so lucky as to have a candidate of that strength. This is one awesome woman.
Phooey – that was supposed to say “the timing is right…”