Why Bristol's Pregnancy Matters.

Barack Obama, doing what he had to do politically, clearly got a little angry with reporters and urged them to stay away from stories about the pregnancy of the presumptive Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Bristol.

Families are off-limits, he said. Except when they shove those families in our faces. Palin’s biography was named as a big reason for her pick. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain announced her as a tough-talking, anti-abortion mother of five who was supposed to help get the “hockey moms” into the Republican camp.

But my bigger problem is that Bristol was an unwed teen having sex and her mom is a big supporter, like many Republicans, of abstinence-only education. Opponents of sex education in schools present it as the state saying, “Go ahead, do whatever you want, and here’s a condom!” rather than what it is in truth: an attempt to give kids all information about sex, contraceptives, pregnancy, and STD’s, and typically includes the fact that abstinence is the only 100 percent sure way to avoid pregnancy and diseases.

Abstinence-only education presents kids with a binary, religiously-influenced choice, a choice to wait until marriage or to walk through the gates of Hell. How responsible is it to pretend that things like condoms and birth control doing exist?

Brian Lehrer asked that question on his WNYC show today, and callers responded that they didn’t believe kids don’t know about contraceptives anyway. But trust me, I grew up in a Bible Belt town without sex ed, and those kids did not know.  Despite decades of efforts to teach the contrary, they still think you can’t get pregnant your first time. And it was me, not an adult, who talked to my friend about sex when we were 18 and she had just gotten engaged.

It’s not like teenagers weren’t having sex, of course. There was a pregnancy in my school at least once a year, and new mothers ranged in age from 13 to 18. There were girls who pretended not to be pregnant until the first and last scary rush to the hospital. There were girls who were, frankly, trying to get pregnant. There were marriages and there were not. There are a lot of grandparents raising kids.

There were also the secrets. There were the outwardly conservative religious pillars whose daughters were on birth control. There were the football stars having sex with girls on the wrong side of the tracks. There were the girls who went away on “vacation” but were secretly having abortions, or arranging adoptions, or coming back with surprise “baby brothers and sisters.” Those stories faded after my mom’s generation but didn’t entirely disappear. At the most open, there were the hastily-arranged shotgun weddings.

The truth is, it was the town elite, those who were relatively wealthy or thought especially pious, who preached “personal responsibility” but didn’t have to live it. Poor girls were the ones who had to stay in school with their swollen bellies, openly judged. The poor girls whose families couldn’t arrange anything “respectable.” And the poor girls who would be judged if they resorted to abortion or adoption.

And that’s the real double-standard in America, and it always has been. The powerful do what they want no matter what they decry. And that’s why Bristol’s pregnancy is outrageous. Because those who oppose abortion are the first to say that sex before marriage is unambiguously wrong, but are now saying that they support Palin’s support of her daughter. Someone has to call out the hypocrisy in the religious right, because they can’t tout these philosophies and not be held accountable to them.

quadmoniker

Monica is a reporter who lives in Washington D.C.

Latest posts by quadmoniker (see all)

  • Great post. I might have titled my post this morning the same thing. Thought you might be interested.

    Grace and Peace,
    Raffi Shahinian
    Parables of a Prodigal World

  • Shawn L.

    Hitting the GOP with their family values hyprocrisy on the GOP-owned corporate media, while personally satisfying, is a no-win proposition. Their gameplan is clear: trot out the Michelle Bachmanns of the world to label any criticism as mysogynist.

    Now this tactic can actually be effect if you’re seen as making personal attacks and nothing is as personal as family issues. But it looks ridiculous the way it played out last night on Larry King last night:

    Carville: (Rattles off her very modest accomplishments with no mention of gender whatsoever)

    Bachmann: I found that offensive. She has two years of executive experience blah blah blah.

    It’s no coincidence that all the high-ranking Republican women are staying as far away from this debacle as possible. They don’t want to jeopardize their political futures by going down with this sinking ship.

  • Perfect. Just what I was saying earlier today. Had a conversation with some local folks in a breakfast spot. They were saying that Barack was right to keep the family out of it and out of his mouth. They were saying it wasn’t an issue. I was trying to tell them that Palin put it into issue!

  • scott

    There is no hypocrisy in thinking what your daughter did was wrong but still supporting her. The writer seems to expect Palin to kick her daughter out on the curb just to prove how hardcore she is.

  • quadmoniker

    It wasn’t Palin’s hypocrisy I was pointing out there.

  • Shawn L.

    “There is no hypocrisy in thinking what your daughter did was wrong but still supporting her.”

    Absolutely. So how can the Republican party run on “family values” when they behave just like any caring family does, regardless of political affiliation?

  • This is where the hypocrisy comes in: pretending that “abstinence only” education is sufficient for our young people.

    Otherwise, I don’t find that there is hypocrisy in both touting family values and supporting your teenager who’s becoming a parent. Scott said it well.

    I think that going on the offensive over this is a bad strategy for Dems b/c it could trigger sympathy for McCain’s ticket. If Dems want something to attack, it should be McCain’s judgment (or more accurately, the lack thereof) in picking someone he barely knew anything about after having six months to make his choice from all the people out there.

  • quadmoniker

    The hypocrisy I meant to point out is that of the “values voters,” who are willing to overlook something that would clearly be contrary to what they say they believe.

    And I don’t think the Dems should call them out on it. What I meant to point out was this: The values Palin has espoused as governor justify the pregnancy as a news story. It’s the press who should be holding people accountable. We shouldn’t be relying on politicians to do it.

  • scott

    Firstly, “family values” is a great slogan, even if you don’t like the constituent polices that fall under the rubric of family values. Second, Republicans, despite what some people say, are human and generally just as hypocritical as the rest of us.

    But unlike the folks in the original post, the Palins are not hiding her and are not having her get an abortion.

  • quadmoniker

    Because they’re on the national stage. And what kind of “values” are they, really, if you, as governor, promote “abstinence only” education while your daughter is not abstinent?

  • scott

    As a parent, I can adhere to and promote a set of values and still fail to teach my children those same values. Just b/c I fail to teach, communicate or inculcate those values in my kids doesn’t make me a hypocrite.

  • quadmoniker

    Once again, the “values voters” are the hypocrites here. Because if you believe something like sex before marriage is wrong, but then you excuse it when it involves your candidate, that’s hypocritical.

  • Just because the kid didn’t do what they were taught doesn’t mean the parent failed to teach either.

    Anyway, I do think it’s silly for the Palins to think, given their stance on the issue, that their daughter’s situation wouldn’t be talked about.

  • quadmoniker

    And Sarah Palin as a mother of five, and therefore her abilities as a mother, was touted upon her nomination. McCain even mentioned her time in the PTA as “experience.” I’m sorry, but I think that makes it fair game. And if your publicly stated values are one thing, and if the family paraded across the stage doesn’t conform with them, then that makes it all fair game to be questioned by voters.

  • scott

    I don’t think I’ve heard anyone excuse what the daughter did. On the other hand, people aren’t going out of their way to publicly critizice the family either, but I don’t think that the lack of criticism means that people excuse what the daughter did. I would say, from the reaction that I’ve seen, that folks are (maybe conveniently) overlooking the whole abstinence failure and concentrating on the fact that the daughter is going to give birth and marry the dad, which I think to the “value voter” makes things right.

  • Um, I understand that Palin is a public figure and therefore news about her family becomes, to some extent, fair game. But I don’t think using it will get dems anywhere.

    First, teenagers don’t always (dare I say they rarely) do what they’re told. Even the most even-handed, progressive, approachable parent can be faced with a recalcitrant kid; even pro-sex-ed people can end up with pregnant teens. And while sure, it’s likely the abstinence thing had something to do with Bristol’s current situation, there’s no way to prove it, and any attempt on the dems’ part to do so will only make the “values” voters love Palin more.

    Second, women should have the right to control their own bodies. This goes for Bristol Palin, too. (Of course, it’s anybody’s guess whether the “choice” to keep the baby is hers … but again, it’s not a question to which anybody’s going to get a straight answer.) She’s got a tough road ahead of her, even given her privileged position, and it’s not going to win any elections to go attacking a 17-year-old mother.

    So as sweet as it seems to say, “see!! Abstinence-only education doesn’t work!!!” can you imagine how quickly the GOP machine could turn around and start pointing out pregnant daughters of pro-choice, pro-sex-ed activists? I’m sure they’re out there, and they don’t deserve that kind of treatment either.

  • Oh, and “excuse” what Bristol did? “Excuse”???? She’s seventeen and she had sex. She didn’t use a condom, and so she exercised poor judgment, most likely influenced by this abstinence-only crap. But really, who are we to start talking about whether or not we “excuse” her for being sexually active and not particularly smart about it? Sounds to me like a short step from there to abstinence-until-marriage.

  • quadmoniker

    I don’t think anyone said anything about whether we should “excuse” Bristol’s behavior.

    But the points that you and others bring up, that kids do what they will sometimes no matter what they’re told, runs exactly counter to the reasons why conservatives think we should have abstinence-only education. Of course teenagers have sex. But admitting that would mean that we should be responsible about it as a country, and people would rather tell themselves that the polite fiction that telling kids to wait actually works.

  • scott

    Quad:

    Actually you did talk about excusing what she did in 9/2/008 @3:25 pm post, “Once again, the “values voters” are the hypocrites here. Because if you believe something like sex before marriage is wrong, but then you excuse it when it involves your candidate, that’s hypocritical.” Correct me if I am wrong but you were saying that the value voters are excusing Bristol’s behavior when Palin is their candidate and that doing so is hypocritical.

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