Bristol Palin (the daughter who was pregnant during the campaign) recently did an interview, with Fox News- of course. She talked about her child and getting pregnant out of wedlock, the difficulties of that, etc. What is interesting is her comment about sex education and the impact of that on her and her peers.
When Van Susteren mentions abstinence in discussing Bristol’s surprise pregnancy, Sarah Palin responded: “It sounds naive. Life happens.” Bristol also said that “everyone should be abstinent but it’s not realistic… [sex] is more and more accepted among kids my age.”
That actually sounds very rational to me. Teens have sex. If you are astounded by that, then you have either conveniently forgotten your teen years, or you were a very frustrated high schooler. What doesn’t work here is that this simple idea has completely flown over her own mother’s head. Sarah Palin has railed against sex education that is not based in abstinence only teachings. That means not teaching kids about protection and how to prevent pregnancy. For someone who is the ideal Republican “family values” candidate, perhaps she should sit down and actually have a conversation with her daughter once in a while.
Sarah told the Alaska Right to Life Board in 2002 that she would fund abstinence-only education programs in schools. “The explicit sex-ed programs,” she added, “will not find my support.” The stance, which reflected the priorities of the GOP, nevertheless led to an incredulous editorial in the Juneau Empire.
This is where the Republican social agenda really becomes obscene to me. They preach and preach about moral values, but their own families don’t live up to these unrealistic expectations – and their own children know it! The problem is that these policies, while getting them votes among the red state moralists is having an impact on everyone. They chastise those who have children out of wedlock as a drain on the system, but put in place the very policies that lead to it.
According to researchers at the University of Washington, students who receive comprehensive sex education are half as likely to become teen parents as those who get none or abstinence-only sex education.
Put simply, their social and economic values just don’t add up. The Republicans needs to seriously adjust their platform to make sure they focus on things that really matter, and not worry about appealing to the fringe right to get votes from evangelicals through moral arguments.
