Filed under: Author - ACG,Politics | Tags: Religious politics, Sarah Palin, Spin
In rallying to defend his running mate against political scandals, allegations of corruption, familial intrigue, and identifications with religious extremism, McCain has relied on a simple tactic reminiscent of the Bush Administration: blame the press, then hide from them. To appropriate a saying from McCain’s former economics adviser, it’s like they’re becoming a campaign of whiners.
Whereas the mainstream media’s attacks have uniformly remained above the belt – focusing on Palin’s policies and legitimate personal failings – McCain has sought to impute the sexism of a few blogs to the media at large, accusing them of unfairly targeting Palin because of her gender (a claim that reeks of hypocrisy) and prying into her family life (which never happened). The argument – as John Stewart succinctly puts it – seems to be that we shouldn’t even be talking about Sarah Palin, because it’s sexist. Should this tactic continue, McCain’s use of the “gender card” to defend his campaign may even eclipse Bush’s use of the “patriotism card” to dodge dissent.
While we all ought to agree that impugning Palin based only on her gender (like, *ahem*, nominating her based only on her gender) would be sexist, inquiring into her corrupt past and questionable beliefs is not. If McCain didn’t vet his running mate, someone should – why not the American people? Just so, inquiring into Bristol Palin’s pregnancy and her personal choices out of curiosity or a desire to shame is the height of offensive, invasive muckraking, fit for Teen People or US Weekly, but beneath even this modest publication.
That said, the relevance of Bristol’s pregnancy goes beyond a tabloid curio and does, in fact, reach the political, bringing it properly within the realm of public inquiry in isolated instances. Bristol’s case is but one example of a disturbing rise in teen pregnancies, making the United States the world’s leader in teen pregnancies and abortion, an increase brought about in no small part by the fallacy of “abstinence only” education, a policy which Sarah Palin supports (one, two, three). In a very real sense, Bristol Palin’s pregnancy is a poignant reminder of her mother’s failures to adequately address teen pregnancy.
That “abstinence only” doesn’t work ought to be obvious: the government’s job is not to lecture and pray for the best outcome (abstinence until marriage), but to prepare for the worst (teenage sex) by ensuring that, when “mistakes are made,” they are made responsibly. The revulsion felt by the religious right when contemplating premarital sex is no excuse for pretending it doesn’t happen.
Similarly, Sarah Palin would rather deny the problems created by teen pregnancy than deal with them responsibly. Bristol Palin is lucky: her child will find a loving home and attentive grandparents, and because of their care, she may even be able to go to college. Other women are not so fortunate. Teen pregnancy can destroy a mother’s life and ruin her baby’s before it begins, a problem that Sarah Palin is willing to neither acknowledge nor address. Earlier this year, she slashed aid to teen mothers.
If we’re not going to talk about Bristol Palin, her baby, or her boyfriend/fiancé, we ought at least be able to address Sarah Palin’s failure to deal with teen pregnancy, and her lack of sympathy for (unrelated) teen mothers, through the lens of her daughter. Not all expectant teen mothers have loving families with seaplanes & three houses, and they have no use for moral grandstanding or pontificating. They need a helping hand & rational policy. Sarah Palin can’t – and won’t – deliver on either.
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“That “abstinence only” doesn’t work ought to be obvious: the government’s job is not to lecture and pray for the best outcome ..”
I disagree, I know of families who teach “abstinence only” and it works for their kids who later on have found a soulmate, then had kids…
The only reason why the governor’s kid has been an issue is because she is a republican, and her kid made a mistake. I lived in a state where teenage mothers used to come from another state to collect their welfare checks. It was finally cut off by reform but for years the state was getting ripped off.
Palin doesn’t want to reward teen moms but to teach them how to be responsible.
This issue is more of a family matter than a political one…
Comment by Michael September 7, 2008 @ 5:06 amAbstinence-only does NOT work. The fact that some teenagers from Fundie homes manage to avoid getting knocked up is NOT proof that an abstinence-only sex education is effective, any more than the fact that some children who weren’t vaccinated manage to reach adulthood without getting the measles.
This is most definitely a political issue — Sarah Palin doesn’t want to teach teen moms to be responsible — she wants to guarantee that they have no futures whatsoever unless they are born into affluence like her own daughter.
It’s all about punishing those who dare to violate the rules of her ridiculously archaic mythology.
Comment by Mark September 7, 2008 @ 6:37 amWhoa, hold it there.
I don’t think anyone is saying that abstinence is a bad choice or that people haven’t been happy with that choice.
But instead that if you’re someone who probably was raised with the idea of abstinence (and maybe abstinence only education) from a conservative family, and still you end up getting pregnant…doesn’t that illustrate “Democratic” point that the child should have been more properly educated so that it wouldn’t have happened in the first place? What was the other option? Teach abstinence only harder? Is that the right tactic instead?
And just an argument I’ve heard about the family matter versus a political one, if that’s a personal matter that should not be public, why are Republicans trying to legislate how a woman should choose to deal with their pregnancy?
I don’t know if I agree with that previous one 100%, but what I do think is that if you’re a politician and your life directly references political issues, or character issues (in John Edward’s case), you can’t really expect for it not to be reported and talked about.
Comment by Oneiroi September 7, 2008 @ 7:21 amComprehensive sex-education exists to promote health, i.e. prevent disease and unwanted pregnancies. That’s the goal of the programs and there really isn’t any moral component to it.
Abstinence-only programs exist to prevent sin, not disease. They don’t care whether or not it prevents disease. They’re attacking the sex itself. Frankly, I’ve heard things that suggest they consider STDs to be a feature, not a bug; in the arguments about the HPV vaccine, I’ve heard people argue that the possibility of getting cervical cancer might stop some women from having sex.
Comment by Narc September 7, 2008 @ 10:30 amOneroi, hi. I’m the exception, I guess, who’s the one person saying abstinence is a bad choice and people can’t be happy with it. I base that on personal experience, having had that choice assigned to me though I wanted nothing to do with it. Made me miserable, and probably more bloodthirsty than is ideal.
Fornication is an inextricable part of people’s happiness. It’s a good and moral thing. Pregnancy and STD work against people’s happiness, that makes them bad things, and were there some intelligence responsible for them it would be an immoral one. The solution isn’t to try and prevent sex in order to prevent STDs and pregnancies, it’s to sever sex from STDs and pregnancy and put a nice Berlin Wall in between to keep them separate. Vaccination and comprehensive sex-ed work towards that. Abstinence propaganda… doesn’t.
Comment by Steve September 7, 2008 @ 11:21 amNarc, well said!
Comment by Ames September 7, 2008 @ 11:23 amFrom Ames: …by ensuring that, when “mistakes are made,” they are made responsibly.
How do you ‘make a mistake responsibly’ ?
Also, I hardly think reducing funding for teen mothers from $5 million to $3.9 million is ‘slashing’.
Comment by Progressive Conservative September 7, 2008 @ 3:58 pmHow do you make a mistake responsible? By minimizing the negative consequences.
For instance, if you go to a party, drink heavily, and then go home with someone who disgusts you in the cold light of day, you might very well consider that a mistake. By using prophylactics, you reduce the negative consequences. If you make a further mistake and don’t use prophylactics, you can reduce the negative consequences by taking emergency contraception.
Those are the kinds of options that people like Palin don’t want teenagers to know about — they want teenagers to suffer the full, unmitigated consequences of their mistakes and deny them the ability to exert control over their own lives.
Comment by Mark September 7, 2008 @ 6:17 pm@PC:
The lack of understanding there whapped me upside the head like a load of bricks .
That’s right, PC, because (mostly unwed) teen mothers don’t need money. In fact, I hear they’re just rolling in the dough up there in Alaska. They need to learn to raise children the proper way—in poverty.
Comment by Radioactive afikomen September 8, 2008 @ 4:35 pm“The birth rate among Alaskan teens ages 15-19 years declined nearly 45% from 1991-2005. The teen birth rate among younger teens (15-17 years) declined 54.2%, from 37.8 per 1,000 population in 1991 to 17.3 in 2005. “
http://www.hss.state.ak.us/dph/wcfh/adolescent/assets/Teen_Preg2007.pdf
An approx. 50% reduction in teen births was met with a 22% cut in funding. How does that seem unfair?
Comment by Progressive Conservative September 8, 2008 @ 5:01 pmPC, there are two things you’re not considering, the dollar fell considerably from 1991 to 2005. Therefore, even if the funding had remained constant, it was effectively a cut. Secondly, notice that the birth rate is given per capita. The population of AK did not remain constant. Even if the birth rate remained unchanged, there would still be a net gain in the number of teenage mothers that needed help. Lastly, you’re ignoring the fact that these teen mothers might need help for more than one year. Even if the teenage birth rate dropped to 0% in 2005, there are still all those girls that became mothers in 2004 that need help.
I don’t know if these cuts were reasonable or not, but it’s not a fair comparison to see X% and Y%, that X>Y, and therefore the cuts were justified.
Comment by Narc September 9, 2008 @ 12:04 pmIt’s also inportant to keep in mind that this is just one program. From the same source:
Comment by Progressive Conservative September 9, 2008 @ 12:24 pm“In Alaska, the public cost associated with teen childbearing is conservatively estimated to be $32 million in 2004, half paid by the federal government and half by the state. This estimate captures net costs – those costs over and above what would have been incurred if a person with similar characteristics to the teen mother delayed childbearing until age 20 or 21. The estimate includes $13 million for public health care (Medicaid and SCHIP), $8 million for child welfare services and $11 million for incarceration of sons of teen mothers. The average annual cost of teen childbearing is $1,825 per teen birth. However, the cost of births to younger teens is higher than that for older teens. The average annual cost associated with a child born to a mother 17 and younger is $5,909.”