Pendragons Princess

OK, so it’s great that Bristol’s delivery went well and she is the mother of a baby boy, but her statement to the public is far wiser than that of her Mom’s:

http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/117487/bristol_palin_says_to_teens%3A_don%27t_get_pregnant/

Bristol Palin Says to Teens: Don’t Get Pregnant

By Jodi Jacobson

January 6, 2009

On December 27, Bristol Palin, daughter of Alaska Governor and former Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Today, Bristol, who is 18 years old and just shy of achieving her high school diploma, joined her mother in a statement on the birth of her first child, Governor Palin’s first grandchild.

Governor Palin, obviously elated with the safe delivery of her grandchild and the health of her daughter, stated;

We are over the moon with the arrival of this healthy, beautiful baby.

And, she continued:

The road ahead for this young couple will not be easy, but nothing worthwhile is ever easy. Bristol and Levi are committed to accomplish what millions of other young parents have accomplished, to provide a loving and secure environment for their child. They are both hard workers, they’re very strong, and have faith they’ve made the right decision in setting aside their own interests to make this child their highest priority.

The operative word here is “decision.” Bristol and Levi, along with their families, made a decision that was right for them. And the fact that they have this choice is instructive on many levels.

Bristol Palin said she “obviously discourages” teen pregnancy and knows that plans she previously made for herself will now forever be changed.

“Teenagers need to prevent pregnancy to begin with - this isn’t ideal. But I’m fortunate to have a supportive family which is dealing with this together. Tripp is so perfectly precious; we love him with all our hearts. I can’t imagine life without him now.”

Yet the situation is also full of irony. Bristol grew up in a family which espoused abstinence-only policies, not just as a familial choice, but also a state- and national strategy. During the Presidential campaign, MSNBC reported that in response to an Eagle Forum questionnaire during her gubernatorial race, Sarah Palin supported abstinence-only sex education.

Eagle Forum: Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?

Palin: Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.

Among credible researchers, there simply is no dispute: Well-designed comprehensive programs simultaneously encourage delay in sexual activity and teach adolescents how to practice safer sex thereby preventing both unintended pregnancy and infection. Abstinence-only programs leave them vulnerable.
That Bristol and Levi became sexually active, were unprotected and ended up having a child before they planned to do so is not a surprise … it is somewhat predictable given what we already know about abstinence-only in reality. That they made the choice to have their child and so quickly become adults and parents while also trying to finish high school degrees also is their basic right, and we celebrate the fact that they can exercise these choices.

Indeed, we celebrate the healthy and safe arrival of baby Tripp and wish him, his parents, grandparents, aunt, uncles, and his extended family only the very best.
But something in Bristol’s statement implies a different take on the situation … she is telling teens to prevent pregnancy in the first place, and by doing so at least implicitly suggesting that they be able to exercise responsible choices if and when they engage in sexual activity. Maybe Bristol is way ahead of her mom.

We invite those who continue to support abstinence-only programs to share their thoughts on where this situation places the debate. The evidence is clear. The Palin’s story unfolding in the national press puts the data in the context of personal history. And yet the broader implications of the dichotomy between personal experience and political philosophy remains relatively unexplored.

So we ask this: why, in the real world, does anyone still defy the evidence? In this real world in which we live, some 600,000 women die annually — and many times that number suffer illness and disablity — from complications of pregnancy and unsafe abortion. They do not have access to safe delivery services or emergency obstetric care because it is not a high priority to provide them with these services.

In many of the poorest countries of the world women continue to bear a higher number of children than they desire due in large part to lack of choice over childbearing and lack of access to contraception, because it is not a high priority to change these circumstances. They have decided they lack the means to “provide a loving and secure environment for their [next] child” and so many risk their own lives in unsafe abortions to end unintended pregnancies.
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The above excerpts hit home the hardest: why do evangelical Christians so adamantly oppose pre-marital sex, but also oppose birth control in any shape or form? (Here they are on a par with the Roman Catholic Church) They need to wake up (Sarah Palin, drink some coffee to help you wake up!) out of their La-La Christian Paradise on Earth and get with reality for a complete change. Maybe it is the delusional Christian fundamentalist belief of “Since I am now saved by the blood of Jesus I am incapable of committing sin” nonsense that causes the downfall of so many evangelicals. I don’t know. Sociologist Mark Regnerus went into detail as to why red states that have a majority of evangelical, fundamental Christians have a much higher rate of unwed teen pregnancy, versus the more liberal blue states in his book “Red Sex, Blue Sex.” The evangelicals can have all of their little “Wait Until Marriage” and “Promise Ring” groups (now this is another things that has proven to be an utter failure: saying you’ll be chaste until marriage is pretty worthless unless it is put into practice) but on the surface, habits and behaviors reveal something entirely different.

What exactly is it that makes evangelical teens so, um, promiscuous, for want of a better word? Outside of not having access to birth control, can they be learning their behaviors from their parents? The word “Yes” probably carries more weight than anything else here. Think of it, Sarah Palin, mother of five children, with each successively older child having firsthand knowledge of making babies, once the child sees the mother pregnant. Of course, evangelical Christians tend to have large families for whatever reason - it certainly isn’t scriptural because I’ve read the New Testament and nowhere in there does it describe propagation of the species (Jesus spoke of a family of the spirit (Matthew 12:46-50, Matthew 22:23-33, et al but hey evangelicals aren’t into that, they want to make lots of babies as members for their church). I can’t possibly imagine that evangelical teens have more raging hormones than, say, the liberal atheist next door who doesn’t have sex for whatever reason. Abstinence is safe sex only and ONLY when it is actually practiced. When it’s not practiced, these kids should know how to use condoms, and over the counter birth control pills. The majority of doctors in the United States won’t give these children Mirena, tubal ligations, hysterectomies, and Essure because those tiny bodies are still growing - and because most doctors know they can be hit with a lawsuit by the family of the girl-child who gets these procedures. And our ex-president George W. Bush wasted too much money on abstinence-only education, along with wasting billions in Iraq.

Bristol’s openness about why abstinence education does not work will no doubt strain her relationship with her mother Sarah. Regardless, she is to be commended for her honesty about why teens should not engage in pre-marital sex without some form of protection.