Kathy wags her finger
There is no excuse in 2008, especially when you come from a decent, educated, well-off family, and don’t have some obvious mental defect.Sex is where babies come from. It doesn’t matter that you “didn’t mean to get pregnant” and only wanted the fun parts. An extreme skateboarder doesn’t “mean” to break a leg in eight places, but guess what?
I’m glad she’s not getting an abortion. I’m less thrilled that she’s getting married, but she probably isn’t thrilled either. If it works out, great. It’s been known to happen. But she should have planned her life better. It really isn’t that hard to do. Call it “delayed gratification.” Just control your damn self. five feet of fury
As various lefty commentators have pointed out, now that we are past the disgusting Trig inventions, socons are not down with seventeen year olds getting knocked up. Just say no and all that. My pal Kathy is leading the unreconstructed charge.
Couple of things. First, sex without contraception leads to babies as I know to my delight. Second, telling young ladies to “keep their legs closed” tends to be less effective than the Pill, condoms or, Hell, even the rhythm method.
Young women – and 17 is not 13 – have sex. Mama Palin, apparently (and I have yet to see the quote but it would make sense) is opposed to “explicit sex education” in the schools. So am I ‘cause I think explicit sex education needs to happen at home. In the Palin household apparently this did not happen.
Does this make Mrs. Palin unfit to be Vice President. Hell no. It makes her far better able to understand the realities which are faced by families all over the world. It makes her capable of at least having the chance to rethink a rule against sex education in school because, let’s face it, she did not get the job done at home.
At the same time this will illustrate an essential difference between a broad spectrum of righties and lefties.
Obama stated – and I can’t be arsed to get the link – that if one of his daughters was knocked up he would not “want her punished with a baby”. Mrs. Palin has said:
“Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support,” the Palins said. ann althouse
And for the lefties who are shocked or who want to cry hypocrisy one of Ann’s commentors notes:
Remember, your wonder boy Barack was born to a teen age mother who was impregnated out of wedlock by the 24 year old married black African Muslim father when she was only 17 (actually 18 ed’s note) years old. althouse
Kathy, Bristol apparently did not keep her legs closed…which means that Mrs. Palin and her family will be welcoming a grandchild about the time she takes the oath of office. It would be nice if it had worked out differently; but it didn’t. A new little person will be born. And we will all be better off for it.
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:58 am
I have to disagree with you on some points:
“...explicit sex education needs to happen at home. In the Palin household apparently this did not happen.
Who says? At 17, I knew right from wrong and understood (explicitly) the meaning of responsibility and consequences for my actions – this stuff was drilled into me by my parents. But, I still did dumb things in spite of what my parents taught me. Why? Because I was 17! Just because the kid made bad choices doesn’t mean her parents failed – or, according to you, that it’s her mother’s failure ONLY (she did not get the job done at home).
...sex without contraception leads to babies
Actually, sex with contraception sometimes leads to babies too. The only guarantee against pregnancy is abstinence. Maybe that concept seems too unrealistic these days, but I agree with Kathy’s comment about delayed gratification.
Still, the girl is a silly teenager. At that age, I challenge anyone to say they always made intelligent choices. But I am glad she is going to have the baby. Hopefully the marriage works out, though the odds are stacked against that.
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:44 am
What Sheila said. You’re accepting the view that education determines behaviour. It doesn’t: at best it influences it, and in the case of teenagers, I’d wonder about even that, at least with regard to sex. Aren’t the knock-up rates about even for all the different approaches to sex education?
To take a different example, I smoked for 10 years. I knew perfectly well that smoking was bad for me. In fact, I remember watching shock anti-smoking commercials on TV (close-ups of cancerous lungs, etc.) and thinking, Yeah, I do kinda feel like a cigarette. In the “educationist” ideology, educational programmes can be imposed to the public to effect any desired change in behaviour – but it ain’t so.
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:34 pm
I guess the leftosphere failed to notice the knocked up 17 year old isn’t running for VP.
I could say something here about Larry Sinclair but I won’t stoop to that.
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:06 pm
It must be nice to be able to go through life without doing dumb ass things that you were taught not to do, but you somehow figured you were exempt from the consequences of. I wish I was Kathy Shaidle. I mean, she’s never voted the wrong way or had too much to drink.
Right?
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Unfortunately giving teenagers free contraceptives doesn’t help either. Accidents do happen. (Note that these same “condom” thingies that can magically repel HIV if used for promiscuous sex – bad Pope! bad Pope! for spoiling people’s fun – are IN NO WAY adequate as a substitute for FSL Abortion On Demand because Contraception Can Fail.)
Hell, even FSLAOD won’t prevent teenage pregnancies. Always the risk that a hormonally-swayed 17-year-old may feel clucky and decide to exercise her – what’s that phrase again? – “right to choose” to be a Juno in Juneau. How many unmarried teenage mothers can you find who can say “I only had this kid because there was no way I could get an abortion”, as opposed to “I had this kid because it seemed like a good idea at the time”?
There’s only one way to prevent teenage pregnancies: Curfews. Strict, parentally enforced curfews. Giving parents the legal right to lock up their daughters, literally.
How about it, Democratic Party?
[crickets chirp]
Hey, it’ll also prevent date rape.
[crickets]
September 2nd, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Just a quick aside;
What do you call couples who use the rhythm method?
Parents.
September 2nd, 2008 at 6:27 pm
One further comment…
“But she should have planned her life better. It really isn’t that hard to do. Call it “delayed gratification.” Just control your damn self.”
Earth to Kathy Shaidle… Stop using your Bible to prop up the corner of the sofa and re-read Genesis. Adam and Eve were told—by GOD no less—not to partake of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. We all know the rest of the story.
If even God (God!) can’t get His kids to follow orders, maybe other Christians, Jews, and like minded mono-theists should put a sock in it and stop lecturing for a moment.
Free will is an important part of God’s plan. Yes we’re going to do some blindingly stupid things that we were TOLD NOT TO DO, but we decided to do anyhow. And hopefully we get tired of being bitchslapped by the consequences of our mistakes and use our experiences to become better humans in the eyes of our fellow man, and God himself.
My 2 cents. Carry on.
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:06 pm
There’s a world of difference between being a drunk/addict welfare mom with eight babies by seven fathers whose whereabouts are now unknown and being a headstrong 17-year old girl in small-town Alaska who gets pregnant by her boyfriend and decides to marry him and keep the baby, and who is supported by her own loving parents, who in their turn pledge to welcome the little feller into the family.
It’s the same biological process, but the latter scenario is an entirely positive—the most positive—outcome to an unforeseen (I know, I know) real-world development.
What I find really strange, or ironic, or…I don’t know, insert your own adjective, those don’t begin to suffice—is that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, if Bristol Palin had aborted the baby, no one, including Kathy, would be writing a single thing about this 17-year old’s inability to “delay gratification” or “control her damn self.” If she chose to vacuum it out at a doctor’s office instead of welcoming it into the world, she and her family would not be subject to the criticism they’re now getting from millions of people with a political/moral point to make.
I wish I knew what lesson to take from that, or what lessons Kathy would have us take from that.
I’m a long-time fan of Kathy. She’s a strong individual voice, with an awe-inspiring stubborn-streak. Whether one agrees with her or not—I generally do, but that’s not the point—she is one of those people who create elbow-room for other strong individual viewpoints in an otherwise soggy marketplace of MOR Canadian ideas.
On this one, though, I think she put her grumpy-hat on a little too tightly, and pulled it down a little bit too far.