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Bristol Palin: GOP Abstinence Ambassador?
8May2009 Filed under: Don't Be That Guy, Politics, Stupidity Author: Smug Baldy
Back during the 2008 election, these t-shirts came out, and lots of people were put in a weird spot. After all, it’s generally inappropriate to make fun of unwed pregnant teens, and in political campaigns a candidate’s children are usually off limits. But time passed, and the strange set of social contradictions that surrounded Sarah Palin and her family fell from the public eye following the GOP defeat.
Now, Bristol Palin is back, doing the talk show circuit with her new baby in tow. She’s still and unwed teen mother, and that’s nothing to praise or condemn. Teen pregnancy is certainly an important social issue. Bristol is speaking out as a teen mother about the importance of the GOP solution to teen pregnancy: abstinence.
Never mind the fact that, as public health and education policy, abstinence-only education is a demonstrable failure. Teens that participate in such programs are sexually active at about the same rates as teens who participate in sex education classes that also include information about condom use. The problems appear when you examine pregnancy and STD rates among teens in abstinence only programs. Many teens in these programs don’t abstain, and they don’t use condoms effectively either. This actually puts them at increased risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
Just like Bristol Palin, who gave birth on Dec 29, 2008 at the age of 18.
Regardless of the epic failure of abstinence-only education, I have to question the wisdom of selecting someone who rejected abstinence as the GOP Abstinence Ambassador. No – Bristol Palin isn’t the right person to tout the benefits of abstinence since she has no verified abstinence experience.
That would be equivalent to selecting this person as the GOP Fashion and Fitness Ambassador:
- Tags: abstinence, Don't Be That Guy, Politics, sex education
2 Responses to “Bristol Palin: GOP Abstinence Ambassador?”
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Leona Bushman
June 5th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
I’m a sci-fi author, so maybe I’m not one to talk about speaking on things you have never experienced, but it seems to me like Miss Palin is the perfect person to speak about abstinence. She has the proof of what kind of problems happen when you don’t. She can speak to how hard the consequences are if you don’t listen to your parents and wait for sex. Broken condemns, faulty condemns, birth control that fails for whatever reason, abstinence is still the best policy.
She is proof as to how her mistake can affect the whole family. She went against her family’s teachings and yet it is her mother who is condemned for being a hypocrite because her daughter made a mistake or, if not a mistake, a choice to live her own life by her own standards and not her mother’s.
keep up the good work Bristol. Our daughters need to see that it’s hard even for those who are not from impoverished families.
Leona Bushman
Smug Baldy
June 15th, 2009 at 10:31 am
I suppose that the irony that struck me was that Ms. Palin is a high profile example of the abject failure of Abstinence Only Education as policy, and yet she’s now a spokesperson for it.
Clearly, abstaining from sex is one way to keep from having lots of negative consequences – especially if you’re young. But some of the items you list, Leona, such as broken or faulty condoms, or birth control that fails point to the need for adequate education about these methods for those millions of Bristols out there that don’t abstain. For example, it’s well known that condoms are highly effective against the spread of many STDs, it’s also demonstrable fact that condoms rarely fail and are rarely defective. Of course, they need to be used correctly – and I think it’s the responsibility of anyone who is choosing to be sexually active to know how to protect themselves against unwanted pregnancy and STDs. According to a recent study – the proportion of sexually active teens has been trending downward between 1992 and 2002, although there has been a recent uptick in teen pregnancy – which some attribute in part to a couple “pregnant celebrity teens” like Bristol Palin and Jamie Lynn Spears:
(source: http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE54S4T120090529)