For everyone roasting Boebert and other Republicans on their hypocrisy on this, you need to understand one thing: their positions on sex-ed, premarital sex, abortion, and pretty much everything else are fake, and all of them know it.
What they actually want is an electorate having babies as young as possible, locking themselves out of education and opportunities, and keeping themselves in a permanently precarious financial situation so that they’ll never feel empowered to demand better for themselves or their country.
I’m sure as an individual human being, Boebert isn’t thrilled about her son being in this position, or about becoming a granny at age 36.
But as a Republican standard-bearer of the forced-parenting movement, make no mistake, Boebert is proud today. She’ll be praised for this, she will be elevated for it, and that’s what she most cares about.
Of the roughly 30-40,000 mid-teenage births every year (mothers age 15-17) how many would you think are the result of an informed choice? With both parents genuinely considering the impact of having a child, having realistic expectations of parenthood and life with baby, and making a choice that is sensible for both parents and child, prior to conceiving.
I think you’d be lucky to crack 1%. That’s why it’s a bad thing.
I’d also like to note that Boebert apparently dropped out of HS to have a baby, didn’t get her GED until she was in her 30’s and look where the voters of Colorado put her.
This one makes me say “0%” with confidence. I suspect that would also be pretty low for people having babies in their 20s, 30s, and beyond.
I’m not going to advocate for teenage pregnancy, but I don’t think it should be quite so universally condemned. I’d rather see people’s energy channelled into providing support for families with children. Not that Boebert is going to do this: I’m in full agreement with HMS_Irruncible’s post re: creation of underclass.
This is a false dilemma. Sure, channel energy into providing support. But there’s still plenty of energy available for condemning unintended teen pregnancy. Condemnation is an important step to ensure people buy into the importance of prevention techniques like education.
“See! It’s not as bad as those libs are saying. You, too, can have a baby in your teens out of wedlock and before the shackles of knowledge take hold, and make something of yourself! If I can do it, so can you!”
Of all the countless multitude of reasons Lauren Boebert should not be allowed anywhere near the corridors of power, I’m not sure the fact her 17 year old son got his 16 year old girlfriend pregnant is one of them.
No, but the fact that Boebert, like Sarah Palin before her, claims to be a standard-bearer of conservatism and “Christian values”—while her family members get up to shenanigans that if they happened in a Democrat legislator’s family would have her howling that said Democrat is an infamous example of “liberal degeneracy”—certainly is.
@Smapti
But remember, folks - it’s the drag queens that are a threat to our children’s innocence.
Seems like you’re saying teens who get pregnant deserve to stigmatized and punished for life, and so do their parents. Because premarital sex is evil or something.
I’m guessing most people who are against abortion are more likely to have children early in life than those who are not. It would actually be paradoxical for this not to be the case. So I don’t see why we should find anything scandalous here. Surely there are plenty of other things about her politics worth having a go at.
No, it’s the people who want teens to be ignorant about sex who deserve to be stigmatized and punished. Those people actually put children at risk, yet they say it’s drag queen story hour that puts children at risk. They say a 17yo accidentally knocking up his 16yo GF because neither of them were taught about safe sex is a Gift from God, but a 17yo coming out as gay or trans is an abomination.
Teens having sex and getting pregnant is not “degeneracy”, though. The last thing progressives need to be doing is assigning a strawman to Boebert in the desperate attempt to tar her as some kind of hypocrite. By her own actions and experiences as a young mother, we should assume she doesn’t think teen parents should be condemned and marginalized.
Her political views deserve criticism, but I do appreciate that she didn’t let her own teen pregnancy destroy her career ambitions. I think it’s a big mistake if Dems think mocking a young grandmother is going to do anything except solidify their own reputation as out-of-touch elitists. With federally protected abortion rights gone now, we need to be prepared for more women with Boebert’s story.
Bolding mine. I’m pretty sure that left to their own devices, most adolescents figure this out for themselves shortly after it becomes an issue. Also it is crucial information for teens to have if you want to have any shot of getting them to go along with the whole abstinence thing.
It is regressive to treat teen premarital sex and pregnancy like a moral offense. Either engage that point or don’t. Whether or not kids should be entertained by men in drag (wtf?) is an entirely separate issue.
Could you point out the parts of the post where it was implied that premarital sex is evil, or that teens deserve to get punished, or their parents deserved to get punished? You can copy and paste it, then underline those parts using the [u] tag for clarity.
It seems like it would be very difficult to accidentally misunderstand what was said here, so I’m just curious to see how you managed it.
On sexual or gender matters, the stand of the ultracons is that educating the children is something that ought to be exclusively and absolutely the province of the parents, including just not telling them a damned thing or telling them utter bullshit, and hey, if there are negative consequences, deal with it as best you can.
It’s asinine from where we sit, but it’s not quite a hypocrisy gotcha in the Ultracon Universe.
Also … while I won’t pretend to extrapolate from the masses to the individual, there are all kinds of demonstrable downsides to (probably more so with unplanned) teen pregnancy (which distinguishes the issue from nearly every issue Social Conservatives raise):
