As a brief warning for those (few) who read these words for lighthearted analysis of my newly southern experiences, this is not lighthearted. This is what you might call an attempt at well-spoken ranting. It's 4am in Austin, I'm not sleeping, I can't quite bring myself to read my Analytical Methods textbook, and I'm furious.
Yesterday at around noon, I was walking out of the UT bookstore and called my dad. Just to say hi, talk to him about my weekend, and see how he and my mother were. He thought I had already heard about Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter and that I was calling to gloat. Since we both take any opportunity to be the other's liberal sounding board, this was a good assumption, but-not having cable and having been reading all morning- I was not in the loop. So he gives me the rough details and I practically have a party in the parking garage. It's Christmas morning for the democrats. A pro-life, conservative, family-values, Christian family has a 17-year old daughter who is five months pregnant. And the campaign admits that they are releasing the information because of the rampant internet rumors that Palin's infant son with Down syndrome is actually her daughter's as well and there has been some sort of massive cover-up of her first pregnancy.
First off, the latter is most certainly false since a 17-year old is highly unlikely to have a child with Down as a 44 year old. According to the March of Dimes, the risk of having a baby with Down is 1 in 1,250 at age 25, and that increases to 1 in 100 at age 40 and 1 in 30 at 45. 80% of Down syndrome babies are born to those under 35, but this is mostly because women under 35 have far more babies than those over 35. 35 is considered the age threshold for risk. So no, the Governor's infant child is not the son of her daughter but yes, her eldest daughter is pregnant at 17. Obama came out almost immediately saying that families were off limits and that he did not consider the pregnancy a part of the discussion. Great move, this is going to spin itself. Conservative governor can't keep track of her own daughter and she ends up pregnant because she has no idea what birth control is since even discussing that is the sin of sins. The hypocrisy speaks for itself. Or so I thought.
The GOP spin machine got to work on this so fast, it might be over before Gustav quits blowing shingles off newly-rebuilt homes in New Orleans. Evangelical leader Richard Land came to Palin's support saying that her daughter's decision to keep the baby was the "pro-life choice" and that "secular critics of the pro-life movement don't get it". James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family also came to her support, saying that "being Christian doesn't mean you're perfect". My anxiety and blood pressure levels are soaring even quoting these men, but if I take a few deep breaths I think I will succeed in making my point.
The pro-life movement is so wildly out of touch with what exactly it is that goes on in this country's high schools, it makes me nutty. Sarah Palin, along with many of her fellow conservatives, favors abstinence-only education. Meaning no sex-ed, no birth control, no STD awareness. Just say no. Her daughter obviously ignored her warnings that having sex before she was married makes her a sinner (or worse) and wound up pregnant. I seriously doubt that it was a one-time thing, and I also seriously doubt that Bristol Palin is the only daughter of a conservative, pro-life politician to ever get pregnant. (I don't feel like googling this right now, but I'm comfortable with the assumption that this has happened before). Let me make this clear: I am not blaming Bristol Palin for her actions, and I'm not condemning her for keeping the baby. These are decisions that are extremely personal and should be made without interference from government. However, let's think about what could have been done to avoid such a situation, which those on both sides of the aisle can agree is less than ideal.
Common sense tells us that if you are educated about something, you will do it more safely. This is why we have driver's ed. Federal law requires kids to take some sort of driver's education class before they get their licenses. Curriculum varies from state to state, but it is generally accepted that in order to obtain the right to drive a vehicle, you should be educated about road signs, speed limits, and the consequences of driving under the influence or otherwise recklessly. How on earth do we expect children to navigate the far more complicated issue of sex with no direction at all? And I'm going to go ahead and make another assumption about teenagers and sex. They are having it. Lots of it. According to the National Campaign for the Prevention of Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy, the trend is downward, but only slightly, with 46.8% of teens 15-19 reporting having had sex at least once in 2005, down from 54.1% in 1991. I have not had a whole lot of time to look more deeply into these statistics but the NCPTUP was a link from the CDC website, so I am going to take their numbers and method as legitimate for now. It's almost 5am and I have class in 4 hours so I want to stop writing and make coffee and read for class, and get to my point. Which is that the pro-choice movement doesn't want to kill babies.
I wish that abortion was so rare that its proponents didn't need massive political machines to keep Roe v. Wade from being overturned. I wish that the number of women becoming pregnant when they did not want or intend to have a child was so low that you rarely knew someone who had been in such a position. I wish that women and men were so well-educated from such a young age about sex that by the time they got around to taking that step for themselves, they had chosen their method(s) of birth control based on what they were comfortable with and what felt safest. Educating children about having sex does not make them have sex. Hormones, peer-pressure, and biology make children have sex. The "Just Say No" thing works for drugs (well, not really but...) because drugs are both illegal and extremely dangerous. Sex is neither. Pro-choice America is not out of touch with traditional values, we're just rational. Kids are going to have sex, so why not be sure they do it safely. Having a child at 17 is not a blessing. It is a drastic, unintended, and entirely preventable outcome of having sex. If I could speak to her, I would ask Sarah Palin if she thinks loving her child even though she got knocked up proves her a good Christian. Sarah Palin isn't a hero for having a 17-year old daughter that got pregnant and decided to keep the baby and marry the father, she's a poster-child for self-righteousness. This does not a hero make, Ms. Palin.
The title of this post is an Emerson quote. He is my go-to quote guy, and a favorite author. And while I haven't a religion, or creed, that I might describe as my own, I know this: my parents raised me to make smart decisions, to think about the world critically, and to be loyal, generous, and fair. My beliefs, both political and existential, are an extension of those values. How I behave every day is an extension of my beliefs. I try to keep the level of hypocrisy in my life to a minimum. It is far too exhausting to do otherwise.
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