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[fergus8]

Never mind the hypocrisy in supporting abstinence only education and ending up with an unwed teen pregnancy in the family. The real problem issue for me is that Sarah Palin supports equal time for Creationism and Evolution in schools. Fairy tales getting equal time with facts in a science class. Fail. And McCain fails for picking her. What a

Comments

[buzz_overdrive]

I don't understand the charge of hypocrisy. A hypocrite is someone claims moral standards or beliefs to which their own behavior does not conform. Palin supported abstinence, her daughter made a different choice. How does that make Palin a hypocrite?

It's ironic, perhaps. It's not hypocritical.

I hadn't heard about her position on Creationism. 'Course, I hadn't heard of Palin at all before last Friday. Time to read up...

[fergus8]

The hypocrisy is in clinging to the failed policy as a successful teaching platform when it didn't even work in her own household.

[sararainmaker]

I would imagine having a teenage pregnancy in her own home has likely strengthened her belief in teaching abstinence.

[gypsy_kitten]

Hopefully she would be more intelligent than to cling to something that clearly does not work now that she has first-hand knowledge of it. Another term might be "stupidity"? "Irony"?

[sararainmaker]

I don't really know much about her personally, I haven't really been following the race, considering my new apathy for politics lately, however I do have one comment...

On the first sentence: (i know, I know you said nevermind, lol) Just because the parents firmly believe in something, and even if the kids grow up in a loving family... it doesn't stand to reason that the children follow everything their parents believe in. My parents support abstinance before marriage, and yet I got pregnant at 16 years of age. As the sins of the father do not bear on the son, the sins of the son should not bear on the father.

Just a thought.

[fergus8]

I think its an entirely different thing to believe in abstinence for yourself on one hand, and to promote abstinence only education for all schoolchildren in your state on the other. What I have a problem with is her claiming that abstinence is the only thing we can teach kids in spite of the total failure of the policy in her own home, and really, everywhere it has ever been implemented. If her own kid didn't take it to heart, how can she expect any other children to do so? Teens are going to have sex and its irresponsible in the extreme in my opinion to continue insisting that they just not have sex instead of teaching them about sti's and proper condom use in a real sex ed class.

[sararainmaker]

I agree with you wholeheartedly on one thing: "Teens are going to have sex."

We were not taught abstinence in our schools, but the proper use of protection as well as all the options for birth control... in fact if you went to the health teacher she would happily give you a condom... Teens are going to have sex no matter what, and even with ready access to condoms, Some teens are going to have unprotected sex, and others may get pregnant even with the use of condoms.

Still, though: I think about it this way...

When I was 16, as I said I had a child. What I didn't say was that my father was the dean of students at my High School at the time. By MY choice I hid the fact that I was pregnant, lied to just about everyone I knew and said I had Mono, and missed a good two months of school. Why? Because My father, as Dean of Students was in charge of the discipline of all the students at the school and I was afraid parents would make a fuss, "If he can't control his own kid, how is he gonna control ours

[fergus8]

I'm not trying to claim that sex ed will end all unplanned teen preganancies. Shit happens, and kids do dumb things. We know this. It is highly likely that some other government official and sex education proponent's kid has gotten pregnant too. The difference is that at least they had every known tool available to them to reduce the risk.

Its kind of like not teaching someone all the rules to a game. Sure, sometimes they're still going to win because that rule doesn't come up or is non-critical. But sometimes they're going to lose, simply from lack of knowledge of the rules, where they would have won if they'd known.

Random chance and the inexperience of youth make things tough enough already. We don't need to make it harder by deliberately refusing to impart knowledge and facts that could help.

[gypsy_kitten]

My concern is not so much that her under-aged daughter got pregnant. Hey, it happens. Add young and stupid to the fact that no BC method is 100% and bam, pregnant teenager. I was also taught no sex before marriage and look how I turned out. :) My concern is anyone who doesn't believe that people have the right to make the choice to terminate a pregnancy or not. Pressuring her daughter (as I'm sure she did) to keep it, not cool. Allowing (or, even pressuring?) her to marry the 18-year old father because of it (hasn't happened yet, they are just speaking of the plans)? Wtf kind of damage control is that? Not the someone I'd want running the USA. These are not the beliefs that I would vote into office.

Can I also add that it seems that McCain seems to have just pulled this woman out of his butt? I know why he did it, but did he have to make it so obvious?

[fergus8]

Seriously...talk about a shotgun wedding.

And I agree that pregnancies happen. Part of life. The key in my opinion is to minimize the frequency as much as possible, and to give people options with how to deal with it when it does happen. And to totally ignore facts simply because they don't jive with your religious beliefs is wrong. If your religion doesn't agree with established facts, than maybe you should modify your religion, rather than expecting the facts to change.