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TechnoratiBristol Palin: What a Difference Four Decades Makes
It was 1972 in San Francisco, in the era before legalized abortions, when bearing a child out of wedlock was still a scandal. In the closed world of the Catholic university we attended, it was an even bigger shame than in the rushing waters of the outside world, especially with hippies, free love, the pill, the sexual revolution, the women's movement and all the hallmarks of that permissive time. In that time and that place, my friend who I will call Jane, became pregnant by a foreign student with whom marriage was never a possibility.
Jane came from a huge, devoutly Catholic family; she was the fifth child and second daughter of a dozen siblings raised on a farm near Sacramento. Her father was a retired administrator who taught at one of the state universities. Her parents were very kind, good people. I remember many happy times at the farm between semesters; long summer days in the Central Valley heat; and a houseful of loving siblings during the winter holidays.
She had never considered using birth control; it was a sin, after all. (So was fornication but I digress...) Furthermore, birth control was legalized only after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Griswold v. Connecticut in 1967. It is important to remember that the birth control pill, known simply as "the pill," had only become available in 1960 but until Griswold v. Connecticut, it was accessible mainly to married couples. The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in 1973, put an end to the embarrassing practice of begging psychiatrists to write a letter for you arguing that without a therapeutic abortion, you could go off the deep end.
The Catholic Church and the conservative establishment fought distribution of the pill that they saw as an agent of a sexual revolution which would disrupt all the hierarchical and patriarchal structures through which they exercised their power. They continue to fight pharmaceutical advances like the day after pill, RU 486, as well as legalized abortion.
When Jane found herself pregnant, everything changed. I drove her to her father's office so she could break the news. I sat in the hallway while she went in. It was an agonizing visit. When she finally emerged, her face stained with tears, she shared her father's verdict: She was to stay away from the family home until after the birth of the child, and she was to give up the child for adoption after which she would be allowed to return. His main concern, he said, was that a bad example not be set for the younger children, several of whom were not yet ten years old. As far as I know, her mother had nothing to say about it; I don't know if she urged him, in private, to change his mind; nor do I recall if she ever called Jane during that period. I have often wondered what that exile cost Jane in her relationship won her parents.
Jane, then a senior, 20 years old, found herself without a home to return to, without familial support, alone in a way she had never been.
Close to our college, there was a home for unwed mothers. Women in difficulties like Jane's were allowed to live there, earning their keep by being hired out to upper-middle- class families where they cleaned houses. One would think that the families who hired them would have a measure of compassion for these young girls in trouble. Think again.
The families who hired them openly regarded them as fallen women. Cleaning those houses was a favor that those well-off people bestowed upon them, a gift given grudgingly and gracelessly. Never was Jane allowed to forget her sin; forcing her to wear a scarlet letter would have been no worse.
Jane did her time; she cleaned the houses; she had her baby - a girl - and gave her up for adoption. Still in the hospital after giving birth her older sister came to her bedside only to excoriate her for having brought disgrace upon the family. Once it was all over, she could go home, finally. It seemed to me that she never really got over it.
Jane and I drifted apart and I do not know if she ever looked for her baby or if the child eventually found her way back to her. I hope they found each other.
I was thinking about Jane as I watched the evolving news from the Republican convention, especially the revelations about Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin and her pregnant 17 year-old daughter, Bristol. People are such gossip-mongers; of course the news about her daughter was bound to draw attention for a while.
I am deeply happy that girls who find themselves in trouble (don't you love euphemisms?) will no longer be excoriated and expelled by their communities. That, at least, is one thing for which Gov. Palin should be praised. If one as conservative as she is, with a track record of pushing abstinence as the only birth control, can welcome her errant daughter with open arms, there is some hope that others will follow suit. I don't know if homes for unwed mothers still exist. I hope not but I do hope some supports exist, kinder gentler supports than what we've seen in the past.
The only reason it is worth discussing at all is that the conservatives have been guiltier than any other group of condemning young women in similar straits. From Hester Prynne to the present, it has been a sin that women have carried alone as if there were an epidemic of parthenogenesis out there. They didn't do it to themselves but they have been treated as such. I am glad that that hypocrisy has finally been discarded, even if it is a result of bald political opportunism.
Hypocrisy is never far from the surface. The conservatives are demanding support for women who find themselves pregnant and praising Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama for his support for alternatives to abortion. Perhaps they can be persuaded to support the children who are already born and living in poverty even as their congressional representatives condemn welfare and try to destroy programs for poor families with dependent children. Poverty: The final frontier.
72 Comments so far
Show AllLets not forget 1 important little detail...It is sad that Brooke Palin's situation is out there for the whole world to discuss/judge and she should be damn glad she lives in a country where she still HAS a choice, but she's only having her private life aired because her mother decided it'd be cooler to be VP than a govenor and even WAY cooler than being a sportscaster. Simply put, she put her career ahead of her family's privacy. Unless she is hopelessly naive, she had to have KNOWN that her 17yr old daughter being pregant & unwed would cause a media firestorm & intrude on her daughter's right to privacy in a highly personal time in her young life. Ask yourselves as parents....would you put your daughter through what that kid is going through for ANY job??? And don't give me any feminist crap about how she's making history and she'd never get this chance again. I'm a mother and I don't care if they offered me my own dictatorship, I'd NEVER put my daughter through this bull$hit!!! You can only be a VP for 8yrs max. Looking out for your daughter's best interests & well-being is a lifelong job. For that reason above all the many others, I question Caribou Barbie's judgement & values...
The Florence Crittenton homes still exist, though there may be fewer, now, & they are probably pleasanter than the Catholic home Dr. Pegueros described.
When they were in their hay day, the Crittenton homes accepted very, very few minority girls, & those girls were very strongly urged (nay, forced) to keep their babies. "White" girls in Crittenton & other homes for unwed mothers were admitted with the understanding that the infants would be surrendered for adoption, & the girls would never know what happened to them. My sister-in-law's mother fostered infants for a Catholic charity. She had Philippine twins in her care for more than two and a half years, until adoptive parents could be found. It scarred her to give them up, although she was quite racist, otherwise.
I thank Dr. Pegueros for telling the story of our times. Someone posted a blithe assurance that the girl could have gotten an abortion. I remember vividly a married friend who wanted to abort her fourth child, which would have taxed her finances and all her resources. She was told, by every medical person that she spoke with, that getting permission for an abortion might result in her other children being removed from her care. If she had divorced, she could have been declared unstable, because those were the grounds under which abortions were legal, when a board of (male) doctors could be convinced to grant an abortion for the health of the mother.
I have also witnessed an wire-hanger abortion, in a housing project in Brownsville. It didn't take, which turned out to be lucky for my friend. We took up a collection to get her to Puerto Rico. The doctor in the clinic told her that she had developed peritonitis, & he had just saved her life.
We cannot have two abortion foes in the White House & as President of the Senate. We cannot allow them to nominate Supreme Court justices or trust a largely male Congress to be rigorously against such nominations.
MOLLY J: All good points. Another layer to add to this discussion is the economics themselves. I have seen conservative women on talk shows frame the debate on the grounds that women ELECT to work, and therefore abandon their children. In this hardly "child-friendly" nation (I'm speaking about difficult to find low-cost, quality child care for mothers that must work) the laws are made that favor the rich, so working people get the short end of the fiscal stick. Like you said, then the children who face the neglect (mother working two jobs to maintain roof over their heads as real estate costs are balooned, whereas wages do NOT keep up) don't necessarily test well, or have enthusiasm for their studies. Our society is so infused with hypocrisy, that the family values crowd does all they can to place boulders in the paths of those who are not so fortunate to have family money or a two-parent household, shades of "Father Knows Best" where a decent income is generated that LETS Mommy stay home. The 50's model is what conservatives use as their yardstick... our nation is going backwards with a hollow pride that borders on hubris, a collective psychosis!
MOLLY J: I like your thoughtful posts, and appreciate your attempt to educat the right wing voyeur about what CONTROLLING women means. However, you offer a paternalistic, "You little ladies don't know enough about these things, so allow us gentlemen to guide/direct you," explanation. I think it's FAR more sinister than that, thou perhaps wrapped up in that linquistic pandering. It's about controlling the birth line, it's about a repressed culture that does not like pleasure, particularly sexual pleasure when it is experienced by women. This is the Christian Taliban view, although in the Muslim world, it's taken to the anatomical extreme of cutting out, usually without anesthesia, the clitoris. I wonder what Sno wolf thinks about that? Although I remember reading somewhere that Ralph Reed I think it was, wrote a book explaining the sexual components of how wives were supposed to SUBMIT to their husbands. And I remember the court records of the divorce (Nation magazine published this, and CD had it posted about 2 years ago) records of one of the latest idiots Bush planned to appoint as Secretary of Health, the one to decide issues directly relevant to women's reproductive rights. This guy sodomized his wife when she was on sleep medication! And how about all those Republican closet homosexuals who rant about family values?
They should call themselves the HYPOCRISY party. Anti-birth control and anti-abortion, anti-compassion and pro war, lovers of guns and capital punishment, no problem with a president who lies us (US) into war, THE supreme crime, or torture... but get dressed up for Sunday church services all about Jesus who TAUGHT everything BUT what they say, do, and are being programmed to believe! There is NO question is Jesus showed up now he'd be ridiculed and probably tortured by those who identify with his name, but debase his teachings! It disgusts me, and I'd be able to give the whole thing a pass were these same types not so influential in government, and directly causing harm to nature and over a million Iraqis and the count of MURDER continues daily without pause, without the nation owning its own horrors. And those of us who speak out are silenced, can now be arrested, or disappeared. The US is a tragic parody of itself, and religion (not all, but too much) is on the front lines of this ambush of faith, principles and ideals!
Thanks, Siouxrose, I return the compliment.
I actually believe that there are many dimensions to how society seeks to control women and I think it could generate a thread all it's own, so your additive comments seem to support that.
And I agree with your use of the word sinister, even though it is a strong word. I think any time you sucessfully convince people that they are not competent to make their own choices, that is sinister.
However in society in general I think there is a failure to reckon on the costs of decisions. Some of us see the impacts of families that are so big that the parents lose their relationship; the kids raise each other. We've seen women who are poor pay the price to raise their children--working multiple low paying jobs and then people wonder why the kids are doing well--academically, socially, legally. So it is easy to see the costs of some of those decisions. But there is a personal cost to deciding to terminate, to using birth control. And I think some of those ministries aimed at "abortion survivors" stress making the woman regretful rather than "whole". But real maturity is achieved when people can admit that a decision was hard, had negative effects but it was the decision they were willing to live with...as opposed to the decision someone told them they must live with.
Consistent with the original theme of this article, some women 40 or 50 years ago, automatically gave up the baby for adoption. This was a decision that some women in time reconciled; others did not. But the bottom line is that in major tough decisions like this, there are no pain-free, cost-free decisions. And there is probably no one best way for the decision to be made (by the woman, by the woman and her partner, by the woman with her parents).
But most women would not argue that the woman herself (teen, high or low-functioning, adult woman) should not be at the table of the decision making.
When the government, church officials, politicians seek to state that they alone have the core "truth" about how women's problems should be solved--that's just wrong.
To update an old joke from four decades ago:
Q. "What do you call a teenager who practices abstinence only birth control?"
A. "Mom"
It is not the pregnant teenager that bothers me. It happens, and a baby is a blessing. They have chosen to have the baby, a shotgun wedding and perhaps a servant will care for the child while the girl finishes her education. Or perhaps she will stay home. It is their choice.
What bothers me is that Palin and the Republicans are trying to prevent other people from making personal choices. They block education about contraception and the distribution of contraceptive devices for everyone here and around the world. They will withhold funds from any health organization that promotes contraception, let alone abortion. The abstinence-only policy has turned around and bitten her right in the sacred confines of her own home.
Why do they want to oppose contraception that helps people decide if and when to become parents and can protect against sexually transmitted diseases? It is not for them to say. They made their choice and we all need the same option.
Joe
Hey Devins,
I'd like to see YOUR statistics to back up all your statements in the #3 comment spot to this article. Sounds like alot of "stereotyping". It doesn't sound very professional to us either.
Got an axe to grind, or are you normally this miserable? Just be nice for once.
That was my point, Blugie - anyone can make stuff up and stereotype just like you did; I just proved it. As for the Red vs Blue divorce rates and out-of-wedlock births, them's facts.
And for being nice, I'm so sick of idiot, lying, selfish, science-denying, holier-than-thou "Christian" (ha - tell that to Christ!) Republicans screwing up my country and my world that all I can see is red. If those scumbags had stayed in their own backwards little churches instead of taking over my country I'd be as nice as the next guy or gal. I'm through with being tolerant of the intolerant. For now, I'm on the attack and every Republican, and almost every Democrat, is a target.
Cheers!
Unfortunately, many young women who find themselves pregnant are still not accepted by their larger communities. In many of the male-dominated, immigrant cultural ghettos of the US men are still shamed/loose honor via the socially proscribed actions of "their" women. Don't be fooled by the facade of acceptance shown to the outside world.
Busque la verdad!
EZEFLYER: Your mistakenly use logic in seeking to respond to the problem. The right wing wants women sexually CONTROLLED, and in that respect it has a lot more in common with the Muslims it demonizes, than with thinking Americans.
One thing that always hits me is that Christ was the living embodiment of COMPASSION, made it a point when the woman was being stoned to teach, "Let he who is without sin among you cast the first stone." Those who claim to be religious, and fundamentalist of any sect, are the first to throw stones! Christ also taught, "judge not that ye not be judged."
LIke the story shared by Rosa, my best friend's Catholic father won't speak to her because she has lived with the same man for 20 years and never legally married. Both she and he had former disastrous first marriages (as he did), and decided just to live together. They are some of the most decent, caring, compassionate, loving people I know; and I often tell my friend it's her father's loss. That in his strict adherence to the LETTER of the law (as per marriage) he has denied his daughter and the possibly loving relationship they might have had.
I do believe in "A Judgment Day" although I see it more in connection with our viewing our life's trajectory in the presence of HIGHER beings who transmit to our consciousness a greater understanding. It's a lot like the scene where Scrooge is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, etc. When our view alters, we can't cling to the old rationalizations for the mean-spirited ways we behaved. That's why the Saints say "And the greatest of these is love."
In our over-sexualized media-society kids are being bombarded with sexual imagery. I think sex can be a sacrament, a sacred act between two consenting adults; but I take umbrage with the way teen girls have been taught to use their bodies as transitory collateral to gain attention or fleeting popularity. The MEDIA is a co-conspirator in this mess. Even that anal retentive fool, Kenneth Star, acting like a peep show voyeur over Clinton's "extra curricular" activities made oral sex part of a lexicon no 12 year olds NEEDED to know about.
The abstinence only double standard in this case is sickening (i.e. with Palin's daughter, who craved attention and needed affection.)
The right wing wants women sexually CONTROLLED,
Huh?
This is news to you, SnowWolf? That some people seek to control women?
Let me explain it to you.
In the 80's I heard Gloria Steinem speak and she said that feminism is an attempt to seek control of our lives from the skin in. That is, a woman seeks to have control over her body and what happens to her. That can happen when a woman opts for education, for body piercing, for dyeing her hair, for the decision to contracept, the decision to abort, the decision to give birth when others want her to abort.
But there are a lot of people who choose to see women as people who aren't smart enough to decide, who need "help" with decisions, who shouldn't even have the option to decide.
When (largely) men say that women shouldn't have the right to abort, contracept, vote, take executive office, work, stay at home, these are people who are trying to control women.
(It is an ironic aside that for middle to upper class women the "ideal" is to be a stay-at-home mom; for poor single mothers with children it is "ideal" that they work, preferably long hours and often at low paying jobs.)
Now SnowWolf, I understand and have understood from the (first person) family perspective that a woman may chose abortion but it happens to and impacts _families_. And I am not saying ANY choice a woman (or a man) makes is cost free. I cannot think of any important decisions that anyone makes that are cost-free.
But at the ground level, choices women make impact primarily themselves.
And so they have the right to make those choices for good or bad.
And when whole culture wars are fought so that women, who are basically portrayed as incompetent decision makers, must FOR EXAMPLE be shown pictures of embryos in utero to "help" them make abortion choices, this is an example of trying to control women.
Every woman here could cite another example.
Don't doubt for a moment that there are multiple forces afoot that seek to control women. Sure, it's hard to think about it, but give it a try.
And I'll close with a quote from Taylor Mali's poem Like Lilly Like Wilson:
[That] changing your mind is one of the best ways
of finding out whether or not you still have one.
Right Siouxrose. Why use logic when we'uns got the babble.
blugie, The same mentality was applied to the poor in New Orleans during Katrina: "These people are getting what they deserve for being stupid. Why didn't they throw some food and water in the Land Rover and head for a hotel in Shreveport?"
Puh-leese - Let's stop being all self-righteous about the so-called liberal press attacking a poor teenager who made a mistake. Rightwing noisemakers daily make this their bread and butter, smearing poor blacks and latinos with their bloviation constantly in their attempts to dismantle social safety nets. Now a Right-Wing Republican science-denying bible-thumper proves she can't get abstinence-only to work in her own house and the problem is the "liberal" press? When the Republicans get out of my bedroom I'll get out of theirs. Screw Palin and her daughter - they got themselves into this mess. Too bad the rapture didn't go off as scheduled - the world would be so much better with the religious wackjobs called home.
Same here.
I have liberal friends whose daughter had two babies. Nothing else to do -- the daughter stayed home and grandma and grandpa helped raise the kids. Liberals are practical like that, and loving.
I wonder if it's the wingers who ostracize the pregnant teens. Maybe they think by punishing the guilty hard enough, the other teens won't have sex. So the fundies play "don't ask don't tell" with pregnant teens.
Now they're angry at the liberals for exposing the rather obvious.
Good point.
There is a plenty of pathos and satire in this young girl's situation but Ms. Palin and her daughter were never meant to be anything more than raw meat people could fall upon and tear up...ah, yes, and once again the spotlight moves OFF the real issues--an economy in the dumper, the loss of our constitutional rights, press suppression, ad infinitum.
Maybe Sarah treats her kids the way she pretends in public to treat them. If so she is the first Bible thumping bigoted redneck who ever has as far as I know.
I also have to say the attacks and embaressment suffered by a 17 yr old girl at the hands of our lovely press have been despicable...and I don't think I am in the minority here
This is going to blow up in their faces...I read that 30,000 (New York Times) subscribers canceled and gave that as their reason...I don't think Redneck right wingers read the Times...(We read the Washington Times...*LOL*)
I don't have a problem with an early abortion...but I think Partial Birth abortion...especially of a viable baby is heinous...I know you will say "for the Life of the Mother" and I agree...but if she can undergo a partial birth abortion why not a caesarian?...you don't have to keep the baby if you don't want it...
It's unbelievable that right-wingers can claim that "the press" did something against this poor young woman. Her mother completely messed her life in 2 ways: 1) as a bible-thumping idiot, she kept information about birth control as well as the real thing away from her daughter who acted as a normal 17-year-old (with a steady boyfriend for over a year) does these days and got pregnant. 2) and then Mommy dearest 'outed' her daughter to stop a stupid blogosphere rumour about herself.
The rumour that the young child with Down's Syndrome was really the daughter's was so stupid and easy to prove with all the photos and videos that exist for such a public person, and (Duh!!) hospital records. And all this in a small town, where everybody knows everything about everybody.
So to stop a stupid rumour that made no sense and was going nowhere anyway, she needlessly and insensitively announced to the whole world that her 17-year-old daughter (in high school) was pregnant! Thanks Mom! What a selfish idiot. And then the rest of the circus about the child's father (a toughie hockey-player who cursed like a sailor on his Facebook page and said he didn't want children. Oh yeah. Governor Calamity Sarah had another idea on that!
Absolutely the most amazing shotgun wedding ever. By way of press release from the campaign office of a vice-presidential candidate. Poor hockey dude gets the order to clean up and appear smiling and holding daughter's hand on the hoohaw. Love those Repugnantin's family values. And somehow the press did this!!???
I hear that there is no birth record for the teen mother. I also hear that until the kid was born Palin was giving speaking engagements and didn't show as being preggers.
Mind you I think the young Clinton had to deal with worse press when she was younger than 17, she survived.
As for abortion, I'm not going to have a kid so I don't care. If you don't want an abortion don't have one, but to force someone else to have a kid because others are having theirs??? Didn't your mom ever ask you about jumping off a bridge if everyone else did it? Partial birth abortion is so rare it's not worth mentioning, the only reason a doctor would use that proceedure is that the fetus is already a corpse.
Man, that is absurd. Nobody sensible is trotting out that stupid rumour anymore. It's been proven to be the bullshit that it appears to be. Get with it. Gov didn't slow down much but there are photos of her with other dignitaries (so the photos can't be doctored) and she's very obviously pregnant. What gullibility. No wonder the left is so out of it.
There's plenty to go after these right-wing nuts without inventing ridiculous stories that don't make any sense. Palin doesn't believe in birth control and she had a Down Syndrome baby at 43. No doubt about that.
So, Snow wolf, what did you think when John McCain and Rush Limbaugh made fun of Chelsea Clinton's looks, calling her a "dog" and such?
http://wagelaborer.blogspot.com/2008/09/chelsea-is-dog-bristol-is-off-limits.html
I think Kids are off limits...thats what I think
If that is true...he was wrong ...I do recall Rush saying that...and I believe Jay Leno on his show made a crude Joke regarding Chelsea...
McShame made the nastiest, cruelest joke about Chelsea. At a fund-raiser for Neanderthals, he asked: "Do you know why Chelsea is so ugly?" (Sweet, huh!?) "Because her father is Janet Reno", was the answer he gave.
Why if the kids are off-limits (as Obama said, and as it should be), why did Calamity Palin tell the whole world about her daughter's condition? As if it was of anybody's business. You really have to feel sorry for that poor young woman with such a selfish moron for a mother.
I agree kids should be off limits, but what I was thinking this evening was what is her mother thinking? She knew this was going to be an issue. I would never do that to my own children, let my ambition put them in such a negative spotlight.
I think it adds to her genuineness...
and I also believe if she had a (D) and not an (R) next to her name it wouldn't even be an issue...
having survived raising 2 teens I know from where I speak....I also know statiscally that even if you have the "Teen from Hell" during that time...by age 25 they will take on 80% of the Parents values...
I think it adds to her genuineness...
and I also believe if she had a (D) and not an (R) next to her name it wouldn't even be an issue...
having survived raising 2 teens I know from where I speak....I also know statiscally that even if you have the "Teen from Hell" during that time...by age 25 they will take on 80% of the Parents values...
I think it adds to her genuineness... LOL!! Now that's a good one. It surely does, I totally agree with you there. For once, we totally agree. It makes her a genuine idiot!
Why can't you get it? The Gov is the guilty party in this escapade. The poor daughter is the victim of Mommy Dearest.
If she'd had a mother who was halfway reasonable, sensitive, and a wee bit intelligent, she would have had information about and access to birth control and she wouldn't be in this God-awful, humiliating situation for a 17-year-old. Do you know anything about teen-agers? Can you imagine what she's going through because of her mother?
Partial birth abortions are usually when a non-viable deformity is found in the fetus. Why carry it to term and then watch it die?
That is true...and in that case...thats a medical necessity...but what about the cases where its a healthy baby?...there is a Dr. in Kansas, I believe, that will terminate a healthy fetus up to the day before the due date...some of the reasons given are "The Mother was depressed"...we have to apply just a tad of common sense
sorry double post
I assume you're talking about Dr. Geoge Tiller. All charges former Kansas Asshole General Phil Kline laid on him were dismissed with prejudice because there was no merit to them.
Speaking of Phil Torquemada, he decided that any woman's information was open to his scrutiny and convinced a court to toss out patient privacy to push his inquisition onward.
Kansas is a joke.
Any family can find itself confronted with an unwanted pregnancy, or the birth of a disabled child. Most mothers, at least the ones I know, would decide that now is not the time to accept such a public and time-demanding position. They would have put the needs of their family ahead of their personal career ambitions. In no way would that have cost her political points. In fact, she might have actually gained points on both side of the political divide. Women make those choices all the time. I question what her decision to accept the VP nod says about her judgment and her priorities.
Not to mention her judgement or lack thereof when she made the mad dash from Dallas to Seattle to Anchorage to Wasilla to deliver, AFTER HER LABOR (SUPPOSEDLY) BEGAN; this is her FIFTH child, high risk, a month early, her membranes are leaking which makes flying a definite NO because the sudden changes in air pressure can cause them to rupture; she bypasses Providence Hospital where the Newborn Intensive Care Unit for Southcentral Alaska is and drives to Wasilla instead, if the baby had needed immediate special care that would have meant an ambulance trip BACK to Providence . . . Does this sound like a woman who has good judgement ?
"...her membranes are leaking.." ??????!!!! I hope you're not going to become a doctor when you grow up.
Finally, something we can agree on Snow Wolf.
If conservatives stopped sabotaging sex education and if contraceptives were covered by insurance like Viagra is, abortion would be safe and rare.
In ROTC, I had to teach a class on VD, complete with pictures. Like visiting a prison is for crime prevention, that is the guaranteed best preventive method for STD's and unplanned pregnancies.
That Palin victimized her daughter by keeping her uninformed shows how her ignorance would victimize our country.
I'm in agreement with you on everything except one very fine point ... sometimes the fetus isn't viable at the time of the late-term abortion. But I wonder why someone who would have a late-term abortion couldn't have had the abortion much earlier, or avoided the pregnancy altogether. It's actually quite easy to not get pregnant ! I'm amazed by the number of unwanted pregnancies.
Ezeflyer and Atheist...I agree with both of your positions totally...there is definitely common ground on lots of social issues...
I understand what you are saying about the contraceptives/Voagra situation...but the Insurance companies position is that Viagra treats a medical condition and Contraceptives don't...
Perhaps seeing it as a preventative health measure (IE Protection from AIDS and of Course Venereal disease...yeah...I saw those films in Boot Camp too...*L*) might bring on a change in the coverage status...maybe not for "the pill"...but definitely condoms/female condoms and the like
I will say I'm very dissapointed in watching the way the Democrats have gone after this pregnant teenager. To my point of view, just because her mom is now running for VP, that doesn't make her fair game for this sort of attack. So, to me the Democrats that have been going after this issue just seem very cruel and vicious. And I don't like the way it looks like they attack in this manner exactly like the Repulbicans do similar attacks.
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
I have not seen any Democrats go after her. Maybe a comment here or there. The comments have been directed at her mother who made a decision to try to become one heartbeat away from controlling thousands of nuclear warheads. Her decision making, including running for vp with a down syndrome child and an unmarried pregnant daughter is what has been under scrutiny as far as I can tell.
I don't look at a candidates moral character anymore then I look at their faith. "Moral" judgement is not even the best indicator of how a president or vice president will perform their job. Two of our best presidents were renowned womanizers (FDR & JFK) who did fine on the job. Some of our "morally sound" presidents(Reagan & W) have proved to be disasters in office.
That being said, some people think that Bristol's pregnancy is off limits but I beg to differ. Sarah herself threw her daughter to the proverbial dogs. She made Bristol an issue.
Palin supports the myth of abstinence only education which in reality is just as flawed as the 'Just Say No' campaign in the 80's. Obviously it didn't work for her own daughter so why should she demand it for others?
I care a lot about their 'moral character.' I just don't think whether they drink or sleep around has anything to do with what I consider important.
What I consider important is whether I can believe a candidate will actually do what they say. We've seen way too many candidates say one thing during the campaigns, and do something different once in office. We've seen way too many candidates pretend to be the friend of certain groups in order to get their votes, then abandon them once in office.
So, I think moral character is very important. The sort of moral character that says I know what this person stands for and believes in and I can trust that they'll stay true to that once in office.
But, as for who they've slept with, I couldn't care less.
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"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
Oakknot
Samson, I once was taught that what you are talking about is moral courage. Politicians as a rule lack moral courage.
It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees. Zapata
Nice story, but inaccurate.
Governor Ronald Reagan signed a bill to legalize abortion in California in 1967. "Jane" could have more easily gotten an abortion then than she could now, after decades of anti-abortion propaganda.
Rosa Maria Pegueros
You may be right on the facts but I remember vividly my classmates scrambling to find a psychiatrist to certify that they were mentally unbalanced and would go off the deep end if forced to carry a baby to term. Since I personally never had to deal with the issue, I am relating what I saw and heard happening around me. There may be a "Jim Crow" explanation to this discrepancy but to me, it isn't just a nice story; it's what I experienced with my friend.
RE: Teen sex
Number of teen girls reporting sex on the decline
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080820/statscan_sex_080820/20080820/
Report suggests fewer teens in British Columbia are having sex
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/health/080716/x071647A.html
(note that Alaska is just north of BC)
RE: Gov Palin should not be given a pass on this issue. As Governor, she "used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live".
Sadly this tidbit didn't come out before the Repugs announced Bristol's pregnancy. Now, if someone tries to bring it up during a debate, it could be construed (by spin doctors) to be a veiled attack on Bristol (ie children of a politician).
Seems like a double standard here - Sarah Barracuda can use her daughter's pregnancy as proof of her social conservative cred, but if we bring up how her policies hurt other pregnant teens, we will be accused of trying to bring up Bristol's pregnancy, whether we intended to or not.
RE: How naive to think that Palin would be so accepting of her daughter's "illicit" and sinful sex and pregnancy if she were not serving in a very public office!!
I am not so worried about the accepting of the pregnancy but the insistence on marriage. I don't think that marriage is in Bristol's best interest at this point. At this point, Levis figures he is doing Bristol just as much a favour as those rich bitches figured they were by letting "fallen women" clean their homes. If Bristol waits and deals with pregnancy first, she has time to decide whether this guy is for her or whether she is better off without him.
If Sarah Barracuda really cared about her daughter more than her career, she wouldn't be pushing marriage on her. Bristol is not "a fallen woman" in the eyes of social conservatives because she is engaged. The "Jane" in this article was not engaged.
Sarah Barracuda once tried to get a guy fired for refusing to fire her ex brother-in-law. If a person doesn't fall in line, she tries to destroy them. I get the feeling that Bristol and her boyfriend have no real choice but to get married. I guess the NRA extends their reach to the right of parents to insist upon a shotgun wedding.
"Sarah Barracuda once tried to get a guy fired for refusing to fire her ex brother-in-law"....????
Tried! She fired his ass and now she's being investigated for it. "Once"...like it was a long time ago...It happened this year for puck's sake. Here is the story, datelined....Sept 1st...2008!
"The Legislature is investigating whether Palin fired public safety commissioner Walt Monegan after he refused to fire a state trooper who had divorced Palin's sister. Monegan was fired in July..."
There are kids who think that oral and anal sex is not sex ! So I'm not really buying that they're having less sex. Also, self-reporting is notoriously inaccurate, but in this case I guess there's no other way to gather the data.
Since the majority of the Repugs foot soldiers are these Christian nostalgic nut bugs who would love to go back to "the good olde days," it is no surprise McCain threw them a bone by choosing Sarah Palin and voting consistently in manner not unlike what would not be be out of place in a fundamentalist milieu: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Utah, etc. It is stating the starkly obvious that the American electorate be made aware that these nut bags wish to impose their "morality" on the rest of us whom have gladly chosen to live in the 21st century.
Well said!
It must never be forgotten that so called "Conservatives" are NOT pro-life.
They are only pro-birth. They could care less about whether a young mother and child have food, health care, a roof over their heads, any level of gynecological care, any prenatal care, protection from abusive present or former boyfriends, any level of child support from the father, or if the mother and child starve to death and blow away in the dust. THIS IS NOT PRO-LIFE! They vote against any measure of social support in favor of young mothers (especially single ones) and their born or unborn babies. Until the Republican party is willing to get out their checkbooks or pass any legislation to help mothers with newborns, they have no business telling any woman what to do with their bodies or how to manage their pregnancies. Why the Democrats are too cowrdly to point this out to them is a mystery to me.
Oakknot
I can only AGREEE with you totally; what happens outside the womb is of no concern to conservatives, especially neo-cons. That's why there are so many prisons being built.
It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees. Zapata
Absolutely.
I like that term "pro-birth". I'm going to start using it.
I agree, it's horribly cowardly for Dems to not point out the hypocrisy.
Gov Palin should not be given a pass on this issue. As Governor, she "used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live".
Palin Slashed Funding for Teen Moms
It shows a selfish lack of concern for other peoples children. As Governor, she has a nice salary and benefits, so, she can afford to take care of her pregnant daughter. But, anyone else (who doesn't have her means), they are SOL.
I am 72. That's old enough to remember when the "pill" didn't exist, family planning was never spoken of in public, sex education didn't exist, and there was a double standard. Most of what I learned about sex was from rumor and discussions with others who were as stupid about it as I was.
Unfortunately for me, I came from a poor, barely functional family and was in the wrong category. In spite of the fact that I was working part-time before I was 16 and not only went to church but sang in the choir, I could never date because of what was expected of me. Fortunately for me, I was intelligent and willing to work hard for an education. At that time, tuition was low and there were plenty jobs to be had - although women were paid even less than now.
Abortion was supposed to be illegal. It wasn't. I never once heard of a woman who was arrested for having an abortion. A few doctors were charged with performing them. That was all. Those who didn't want an abortion didn't have one. For the rest, the rich (as always) did as they pleased, the middle class budgeted for safe, albeit illegal abortions and poor suffered.
Although I don't really believe abortion to be moral, the real problem was that information and medical care were available to a limited number of people.
As a read the article, it occurred to me that I could come up with stories as bad or worse. I know of people who married to "give the child a name". One woman I worked with when I was in high school was regularly beaten up by her husband. He broke her arm once. A girl I knew in college had a child out of wedlock. Her "Christian" parents took the child and refused to allow her to see it because she was so evil. She eventually killed herself. Things like this were spoken of in whispers. They could not be discussed openly. It was the age of hypocrisy.
For a long time, I thought that we were progressing. Information was available for those who needed it and women were given more respect as people and paid proportionally better than before. Now, I see us going back into a dark age when Christian, moral behavior is only on the surface and horrible realities are ignored.
I love your point of view, being able to see a bigger picture than someone like me, born in 1960.
Don't you feel that there is far too much promiscuity these days because it's too easy to cure STDs (most of them, at least), too easy to abort, too easy to get away with the most outlandish sexual behavior ? There seems to be no restraint now.
We can't have any kind of restraint because that inadvertently affects consumption, which is vital for powering the empire steamroller. A few knocked up teenagers is a small price to pay for having the Greatest Economy on Earth. If it feels good, DO IT!
The author says:
"I am deeply happy that girls who find themselves in trouble (don't you love euphemisms?) will no longer be excoriated and expelled by their communities. That, at least, is one thing for which Gov. Palin should be praised. If one as conservative as she is, with a track record of pushing abstinence as the only birth control, can welcome her errant daughter with open arms, there is some hope that others will follow suit."
Are you freakin' kidding me?? How naive to think that Palin would be so accepting of her daughter's "illicit" and sinful sex and pregnancy if she were not serving in a very public office!!
Rosa Maria Pegueros
Irony! I was being ironic!!
Lucky it wasn't a daughter of Mitt's. I've been told that a Mormon father would rather see his daughter dead than have pre-marital sex. Wow Mitt, that belief would probably reduce the population of Utah by at least 25%.
. . . all Republicans are scum.
The contemporary Republican party has banished Republicans like the late Dwight Eisenhower, Nelson Rockefeller, Jacob Javits, Kenneth Keating and all those pre-Reagan/Goldwater types in favor of the current Horst Wessel model, exemplified by Karl Rove, George Wanker Bush, Dick "Fat Death" Cheney, Tom Tancredo and the ultimate I-was-only-following-orders-cog-in-a-wheel type like Alberto Gonzales. These people can only be described as gangsters, SA street brawlers, KGB executioners, KKK cross burners and generally the type of people who would have been comfortable in the Stalinist Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. So, yes, all CONTEMPORARY Republicans are indeed scum.
I love it! I read your posts with great anticipation and you don't disappoint. Nice gentle comments, no exaggerations...Propriety, sobriety, decorum, and good taste at all times...would be your motto, I'm sure.
Hunter Thomson school of political commentary. Keep it up man.
Why is it lost on so many that the best way to prevent abortion is to have birth control?
Wouldn't it be better to attack the problem at its source ? We've got young kids f*cking. This is a problem. Don't ask me why, I watched the season opener of the reborn Beverly Hills 90210 show and my jaw dropped in total shock when in one scene a high school girl surfaced into view from, presumably, giving her high school boy friend a blow job in a car. Fortunately they didn't show her wiping her mouth, or maybe they did and I was just too stunned to remember seeing it. THIS is a problem. The proliferation of porn is a problem. The sluttification and stripperfication of our young women is a problem. The desperate sexual conquests of women by boys and men is a problem. The desperate needs of girls and women to be validated by men is a problem. The ease at which pregnancies can be terminated is a problem. What we've ended up with is a horrendously ugly culture of dysfunctional sex. Abstinence really IS the best policy ! But not for religious or so-called "moral" reasons. For practical reasons. Honestly, people take more care about not gaining weight than they do about not getting pregnant or not catching STDs ! It's really pathetic.
Modern society encourages young women to behave as young men...
This is true, much to everyone's detriment...especially our childrens'.
I believe part of the problem lies with our society and it's values. What percentage of pregnant, unwedded mothers are taken in by their loving families at no financial burden to anyone, vice, how many are children giving birth to children with no way to support, in ANY way whatsoever, these children who will no doubt suffer and live in poverty, with only one parent who can't even be responsible for themselves, let alone a child.
The first case is personal and no ones business. Case closed.
The second case, and by far the most prevalent, is a public problem, breeding only more poorsouls to live off the public....you and me. Self propagating welfare state.
Mrs. Palens grandchild will NOT be living off your financial support, but that child is in a great, great minority. Lets give her a break, at least for now.
You got statistics to back up your extravagant claims? More children are born out of wedlock in Red states than Blue; more conservatives manage to get their daughters abortions than liberals; more divorces occur in Red states than Blue; more Christians are hypocrites than atheists, and all Republicans are scum.
Homes for unwed mothers don't exist in N.A. anymore, except for those who still send daughter to aunt bess for a 'visit'. I'm quite sure they still exist in some parts of the world, and am even more sure that the upper mucks would love to have white girls serve them once more as domestic servents.
My birth mom lived in calgary, she would have been unemployable had she kept me even though she got married a year after I was adopted out. Some say I should be glad that I wasn't aborted, I reply had I been aborted I'd never have known...