Okay, that probably looks real odd coming from me - a rabidly pro-choice to just this side of infanticide supporter. But come on. It’s coming from posters, from blogs, even my beloved Daily Show has fallen for this one, and it’s making us look stupid.
“Sarah Palin says her daughter made her decision, but she doesn’t want your daughter to have the chance to make a decision.” or “Decision…huh, isn’t there another word for that?” (Thank you, Samantha Bee.)
There are a multitude of decisions to make when you’re pregnant, and at least two of them are possible without bring abortion into the picture at all: giving birth and raising the child as your own and giving birth and giving the baby up for adoption.
Bristol’s made the decision to raise her own baby, apparently. She didn’t make the decision to adopt it out. Voila. Decision made. “Choice” made. And abortion doesn’t even enter it.
So yes, I’m still pro-choice, including abortion. But last I saw, Palin isn’t anti-all-choices, she’s anti-abortion. Pro-life. Whatever. She can be “pro-life” and “pro-decision”, she just doesn’t include abortion as one of the choices, and doesn’t think anyone else should either! (This, by the way, is why I’ve reverted back to “anti-abortion” as a term, even though it pisses people off. It’s more accurate.)
She’s not being a hypocrite, and those who are insisting that she is are being stupid. Stop it.
Except many of the quotes from the campaign and others have emphasized the decision to “have” the baby apart from “keeping” the baby. No one, either the campaign itself, the Palins, or any talking heads, has ever even mentioned adoption or whether it was considered.
I’ve gotta go with the OP on this one, and i was thinking exactly the same thing when watching The Daily Show the other night.
I completely disagree with those who oppose abortion, and i personally believe that the choices women have when faced with pregnancy should include abortion, and that this choice should not be restricted in any way.
But if someone is absolutely opposed to abortion on principle, then it makes no sense to accuse that person of being a hypocrite for exercising different (non-abortion) choices with respect to her pregnancy.
If abortion is Option A, then an anti-abortion person is not a hypocrite for making a choice between Option B, Option C, and Option D.
Yes, the anti-abortion folks would deny Option A to everyone if they could, and for that i oppose them. But it doesn’t make them hypocrites in this particular case.
I disagree with the OP. The criticism is fair. The word “choice” refers directly to having a legal choice of abortion and it’s specious to try to say it means anything else. Palin does not want anyone to have a “choice” about whether or not they can terminate a pregnancy, therefore it’s disingenuous for her to say that only option she would have accepted from her daughter was a “choice.”
The impending nuptials will be no “choice” either, but that’s a different topic…
The allegation in this case isn’t that it’s hypocritical to make the kid keep the baby, only that it’s disingenuous as shit to praise it as a “choice.”
Well, i guess it depends on whether you’re talking about a moral or a legal choice.
For anti-abortion people, there is no moral choice about it. You keep the baby.
But, whether they like it or not, in America today you still legally can choose to have an abortion. Palin’s kid had the legal right to have an abortion, and so having the baby does, at least in the legal sense, represent a choice, even if there was no moral choice about it for her.
It just seems to me that much of the criticism leveled at Palin and the Republicans on this issue has tended to imply that you are a hypocrite if you (a) have a baby, and (b) oppose allowing people to choose abortion.
http://www.counterpunch.org/schulte01202006.html
Here is an article about what it was like before Roe. It was ugly and it cost lives. People will get abortions. They will do what it takes. There will be young people jailed. lives wrecked and some dieing in back alleys. It was a bad time and I do not want to go back there again. Sometimes people forget.
But that’s not really the debate here. I completely agree with you about the consequences of criminalizing abortion, and i think that people who want to do it are morally bankrupt. But that’s not what the OP was talking about.
You want real hypocrites on the issue of abortion? Check out some of the incidents described here:
Especially because the idea that Bristol Palin had a range of “choices” to select from is an illusion–does anyone seriously think for a second that she would have considered terminating her pregnancy? And if she did, that her rabidly anti-abortion mother would allow that to happen? (See this article in Slate if you think she would: Abortion, teen motherhood, and parental authority.)
The only “choices” that the pro-life crowd would accept are those that take place after birth (i.e., either a: raise the child, or b: put the child forth for adoption). This isn’t the same thing as a truly pro-choice stance, which encompasses the entire range of reproductive rights, including the right to NOT reproduce.
And while “hypocritical” perhap isn’t the right word, I do think it’s…remarkable that Palin’s teen-aged daughter would become pregnant when you consider that Palin is opposed to “explicit” sex-ed classes–apparently under the belief that they encourage teens to experiment with sex (perish the thought!)–and that abstinence-only programs are the way to go.
So, way to go Bristol, for demonstrating the effectiveness of abstinence-only programs!
As I understand the “culture of life” train of thought, Bristol and her boyfriend made the choice when they had sex, and the choice they made was that they were both ready and willing to be parents in nine months.
Or just maybe that wasn’t what was running through their heads.
As others have noted, Palin’s phrase, “decision to have her baby” implies that Bristol chose not to abort the pregnancy. If abortion had never crossed her mind, she would likely have used the oh-so-quaint pre-Roe phrase, “decision to keep her baby.” I don’t, for a moment, believe that Palin appreciates the fact that her daughter had the legal right to make that choice or that she’s eager to support this legal right for all women.
It’s probably more clear to put it this way - she had a moral choice to exercise her (currently) legal right to an abortion (within all the legal parameters). The moral choice involved whether to exercise that right or not.
It’s not so much hypocritical as it seems incongruent. If there was no moral choice involved, why do statements from Sarah Palin herself and other supporters praise Bristol for making a choice? One of the more well-known pro-life slogans has been “it’s a life, not a choice” and much of the pro-life rationale that I’ve heard has dealt generally more in absolutes. The more ardent pro-lifers don’t like dealing with gray areas where abortion may be somehow morally acceptable, because then ultimately the argument would break down and abortion could only be determined to be morally acceptable or not on a case-by-case basis.
The language Palin and other supporters have used to describe Bristol’s pregnancy haven’t talked about it in language that frames the “decision” in a pro-life way. By describing it more neutrally as a “decision” or “choice,” they seem to be implying that it is a personal decision and not one that is or should be grounded in absolutes that dictate that decision.
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Please don’t forget the fact that Bristol and Levi also made the choice on that road they headed down soon after that conception, to be getting married as teenagers, thereby potentially becoming a divorce statistic which has nothing to do with despoiling the sanctity of marriage many conservatives are so fearful of.
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To be fair, I don’t think that one anecdote, despite it’s notoriety, is sufficient data to determine that abstinence-only programs fail. Surely, there are anecdotes demonstrating that full-on condom-distribution sex ed programs also show failures.
What abstinence-only programs fail to consider is that in the real world, ideals of 100% unmarried virginity are…well, idealistic. Having a back-up plan is a bit more realistic.
But they aren’t, and very carefully. They’re using the word “decision” instead, for very, very obvious reasons. Actually, I’m more irritated with them for dancing around with word choice - I WISH they’d just come out and say the fucking word “choice” already, except that it would shoot them in the foot politically.
But that being said, thanks Camus, for links to some of the specific quotes I either hadn’t heard or forgot the exact wording of. Those certainly are bending towards the hypocritical in their word choice, where the quotes Sam Bee was playing with last night* and others I’ve seen pounced on here were a lot more ambiguous.
As Palin’s own statement specifically uses the word “have” and not “keep” or “raise” or something else indication a decision between raising and adopting, I hereby withdraw my rebuke and consider the matter unpitted.
Damn. I really have to remember not to start Pit threads when I’m taking copious amounts of cold medicine. They always end up Emily Litellaed.
*And yes, of course it’s a comedy show and she’d pick the funniest ones to play with, I get that.
Agreed. I think there’s been at least one study done that shows no difference in sexual activity between teens in abstinence only programs and those in more informative programs, so the only difference would be their awareness of BC methods. The way I see it is this:
Abstinence only–“Don’t have sex”
Regular–“Don’t have sex, but if you must…”
While I understand and respect the position that Palin and others hold, it’s still idealistic. The reality is that attempting to push that morality onto others is going to cause a lot of pain that could easily be avoided. Give people options, not lectures.
I’ve never heard anybody say that. I’ve never heard on person criticize the decision to keep the baby. The allegations of hypocrisy center around a politician who publicly advocates Abstinence Only education, who opposes birth control and who opposes sex education in schools would end up with a pregnant teenager and praise her for it.
I’m pretty sure that I’ve read about at least one study that showed that teens who received only abstinence-only sex ed were more likely to become pregnant, or impregnate someone else.
When my daughter was a teen, I gave her a sex education course at home, which included the variety of contraceptive products, the urban legends of birth control that were indeed just legends, and a demonstration of how to put on a condom. I used a broom handle for demonstration purposes. I also gave her condoms on a regular basis, which apparently she passed on to some deserving friends.