I agree with you. My point was not well made. Palin’s daughter, as one person, can’t be the proof or lie of any public policy since she’s just one person. But the fact of her pregnancy, spotlit right behind her mother on stage, shines a symbolic light on the conflict between sensible public policy and attempts to legislate morality. The irony is in the symbolism, not in the fact of Palin’s pregnancy specifically.
I’m not pro-life, and I don’t agree with abstinence-only education, but again, the stereotype of Palin is a little off the mark. She’s a member of Feminists for Life.
Given that, I don’t see anything remotely hypocritical in her position regarding her daughter. It seems that this organization’s main position is that the best way to avoid abortions is to give pregnant women the support they need to have their children without ruining their lives. Sounds like pretty much exactly what Palin is doing, isn’t it?
Well, I’d think that the best way to avoid abortions is to avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first place, therefore giving women the support that they need should be in the form of helping then know how to avoid pregnancy in the first place by something other than “abstinance”?
You can still get hurt playing football even if you wear pads and a helmet. Does that mean it’s just as safe to play without them as with them?
Of course it’s possible to give a kid all the information you can about birth control and still have them get pregnant, but at least you tried, and you didn’t leave anything out. Teaching Abstinence Only is like playing without pads.
I’m as irked by the “but they’re planning to get married” thing as by the “abstinence only is working” bumper sticker on her belly.
Think back to the people you were dating when you were 17. Some of you may have married them, but most probably didn’t, with a reason. I can understand her having the kid, I can understand the father taking an interest, but at 17 you’re a baby yourself, you don’t know who you are or what you believe in, and to be put in a shotgun marriage is just as likely to compound rather than lessen the problems. Two teenagers with no college and no history of responsibility being told “go make it work”- even with financial support and the like- is just sort of scary.
This isn’t so much an argument as a reaction. It would work perfectly - as long as others share the same ideas about what a “sensible public policy” is.
For those who believe that abstenance is the “sensible public policy”, having a teen daughter pregnant has the opposite effect - i.e. ‘she’s no hypocrite, she knows first hand how difficult it is to deal with kid’s sexuality’.
You are arguing a point not on dispute. Of course “abstenance only” makes no sense, we all agree on that.
The issue isn’t that, it is whether having a pregnant teen daughter discredits your position on the issue - whatever it happens to be.
Say two parents hold different views on football safety. One believes that the safest game is regular football, with pads and a helmet. Another believes that this isn’t really safe at all - the safest game is touch football, without equipment, because there is no tackling.
They both have kids. Each acts on their beliefs. Both kids are injured. Whose point of view is discredited?