What does this mean? Not have “accepted” it how? 
Not have approved it or offered emotional support.
Over in one of the many threads in GD, Sam Stone links to an LA Times article in which Palin describes herself as pro-contraception, including condoms. If her statement is sincere, then I’m forced to conclude that Bristol probably did learn about birth control methods, probably at school and from her parents, and that her pregnancy can’t be attributed to ignorance on her part.
So I feel I must fully retract my accusation of her (Gov. Palin) being a proponent of “abstinence-only” programs.
However, I still find Palin’s views on abortion rights to be extremist and very disturbing, and I see nothing to suggest that she would have supported her daughter had she chosen to terminate her pregnancy.
That’s the kind of choice that Palin wants to take away from all American women (unless their life is endangered).
You’re operating on the assumption that teens informed of the risks of unprotected sex always have protected sex. Frankly, I think that’s naive. Sure, condoms fail. But don’t discount failure to plan and failure to heed the risks.
I’m not certain how accurate this is, but the abstinence-only policy bothers me simply because I think it’s unrealistic enough times to validate comprehensive sex ed for all teens. Additionally, we’re supposed to be preparing our kids for adulthood by informing them. How can we expect them to make good decisions if we don’t arm them with information? Aren’t kids making informed decisions about their own health and future much more desirable than kids shamed/feared/cajoled into avoidance behavior? What century are we living in anyhow?
What I’d be interested in knowing in this story is whether there were pressures on Palin’s daughter to keep the child and on her boyfriend to marry her. If that is the case, then I’d call Palin and her circle hypocrites.
I’m sure that, if anyone were to ask, we’d be told that it was all freely chosen, but allow me to doubt that maybe, just maybe, someone had a persuasive chat with the two teenagers about Not Hurting Mom’s Chances.
Nobody in the universe could be more pro-choice than Whoopi Goldberg. When Whoopi’s 14 (!) year old daughter called her and said “I’m pregnant and I’m keeping the baby,” Whoopi thought “Oh, shit.” Then she realized her daughter had the right to make that choice, and Whoopi, being pro-choice, would support her.
The daughter’s daughter was born on Whoopi’s birthday.
Pro-choice people do support any choice a pregnant woman wants to make. They just don’t think the option of abortion should be illegal.
Did she really have a choice ? How could she abort in the face of a small town ultra religious family and neighborhood. She may have merely succumbed to the pressure and considered the consequences of standing up to them.
When I was 11 (1), the version of sex ed you’d get depending on which school you went to was Abstinence only at The Other Nuns, Regular at My Nuns and “you can get the Pill at the Women’s Center, don’t bother going to a doctor” in those public schools with whose take I’m familiar.
There’s other things about which I don’t agree with the nuns, but dangit that sex-ed class kind of made up for all the stupid essays on “the last movie I watched”.
1: what? we only had one day of sex-ed class but by golly the nuns made sure it was a whole day, it was before most of us had even gotten beyond the “yuck” stage, and if you missed it you had to go to Dr I’s house and make it up (the sex teacher happened to be Dr I’s wife, as well as a nurse). Since there was no mention of sex-ed in any required curriculums, my school was the only one in town that actually set aside time for it.
Yeah, I find the comment otherwise fucking hilarious considering that I **chose **to have my own son at the age of 18 (pregnant at 17), and it’s harder to find someone more pro-choice than I am. I made my choice, and it was to have my baby. My mother wasn’t happy with that choice, she did try to nudge me towards abortion, but when it was clear what my choice was, she supported me emotionally, financially and even physically at times - my son and I lived with her until he started kindergarten! If that ain’t support in all including the tax sense, I don’t know what is!
As for me, the idea of one of my teens conceiving or impregnating scares the piss out of me, because I have a pretty good idea of how having a child that young can utterly alter your life plans, but at the end of the day, whatever they decide, we’ll deal with it, and I’ll be the one buying cute baby clothes and helping with morning sickness remedies. I might not be thrilled with the choice to keep a baby at that age, but I’d fight politically for that choice to remain open too, were it ever necessary.
Is it seriously your position that those who claim they are pro-choice are actually pro-abortion? That their goal isn’t to increase the avaliability of abortions, but actually more abortions to occur in the world?
Look, I disagree with the pro-life side of things, but suggesting that the pro-choice camp en masse is not about choice and avaliability but actually about promoting as much abortions as possible is as stupid as those who say the pro-life camp is en masse not about protecting life but about holding down women as much as possible.
I’m seriously lost as to this one. What on Earth is the motivation for a “more abortions, please!” pro-choice movement?
Yeah, er, being quite against abortions for personal reasons (I don’t think I could bring myself to have one) but highly against making it illegal, I’m calling BS on that.
Airman, I don’t suspect you’re being intellectually dishonest, but I don’t feel you’re paying attention to the argument. If Bristol Palin decided to give birth after a deep personal reflection on her life, on her position in it at this present time, her emotional status, and her plans for her future, that’s wonderful and I wish her the best. But if her decision was based on her mother’s campaign, what her family or town or state would think, whether her mother would boot her out of the house or physically prevent her seventeen-year-old rear end from any other choice, I think that really stinks.
Moreover, just as has been said over and over, it’s disingenous for her mother to say “She CHOSE to have the baby!” when she wants to remove one of the options from the table for everybody.
A point, though: hasn’t Bristol been pregnant for five months now? She’s approaching or getting past the point that an abortion would be safe, and I believe shes’ the point that an abortion would be performed by many doctors. I doubt she was planning on marrying the guy or that would have happened a lot earlier – in my experience, girls in my high school would either marry very quickly after discovering a pregnancy or anounce their plans to do so and wait until the baby had been born so the girl in question could fit into the dress.
I think the whole thing seems to revolve around the old tradition of “We just don’t talk about that kind of thing” when, in fact, everyone always talked quite unofficially about that kind of thing. You didn’t talk about the fact that Denise suddenly disappeared mid-semester and came back a few months later having “gone to visit a sick relative”. You didn’t talk about that 9 lb 8 oz 2-months-premature baby of Betty’s. If Dick’s mother had this young neighbor kid who mowed the lawns after school but before Dick’s father came home, if James was a Confirmed Bachelor who lived with a roommate to make ends meet, you didn’t talk about it, and you didn’t trick or treat at the house at the end of the road because the fellow who lived there was nebulously Not Nice.
Even with abortions made illegal, people will still seek them. Many of those people will be the fathers of girls like Bristol Palin who do not have the strength of conviction that Sarah Palin does (I will give her that – whatever her other failings, she sticks to her guns). There will always be someone with money enough and power enough and connections enough to find a doctor trained in the procedure and capable of keeping his trap shut. Oddly, perhaps, that’s what I find most repellent about making abortion illegal: the people it hurts most aren’t the people making the laws.
“5 months” is rather nebulous, as pregnancies are counted nowadays. I’d place that at anywhere from 20-24 weeks gestation, which is 18-22 weeks since her last period. This is still in the second trimester, and many states would still allow an elective (non-medically necessary) abortion at this stage, but not for much longer.
I’m trying to find out Alaska abortion law as it relates to age of gestation for you; it’s surprisingly difficult. They define abortion as terminating the pregnancy of a nonviable fetus, but I can’t determine what “nonviable” means in this context: is it 27 weeks, as in some states, or medically determined on an individual basis, like Illinois? I haven’t been able to find that out yet.
What I HAVE discovered, however, it this little tidbit from 2007:
which would seem to indicate she doesn’t respect a 17 year old’s right to make any choice if it goes against her parent’s wishes, as well as the restriction found here:
(bolding mine)
And from this site on teen abortion laws:
So, the law was never changed; it’s merely being held in abeyance while this court order is in effect.
Yeah. Some “choice” she had in her mother’s home, I’m sure. :rolleyes:
CITE???
I have never in all my years of being pro-choice ever heard any pro-choice person attack a woman who decided to continue her pregnancy.
I have heard anti-abortion people viciously attack women who chose to have a legal abortion, and even those going into a Planned Parenthood office without even knowing WHY the woman was going there.
ETA: I’ve also heard anti-abortion people attack a friend of mine who chose to continue her pregnancy and then give the child up for adoption. To a gay couple. Some pro-lifers only support adoption for the “right people.”
The op is correct. Those opposing are trying to wrestle with a pig. 
He’s not about to come back to his flaming pile of FAIL to cite you anything. Even he must realize the stupidity of his statement. I’m hoping he was drunk when he posted it, then at least there would be an excuse.