WP: The Lesson of Bristol Palin
By Ruth Marcus
Tuesday, September 2, 2008; Page A15
Bristol Palin holds her brother Trig while their mother is introduced as John McCain's running mate.
(Stephan Savoia/AP)
....It's naive to imagine, in the anything-goes Internet era, that Palin's daughter's pregnancy would go unremarked upon. It's also mistaken, I think, to expect it. Like it or not, Bristol Palin's pregnancy is intertwined with an important public policy debate about which the two parties differ and on which Sarah Palin has been outspoken.
Which brings me to the teachable moment: What should teenagers be taught about sexual activity and contraception? By whom? What access should they have to condoms or other forms of birth control? Specifically, is abstinence-only education enough?
The 2008 Republican Party platform acknowledges that "each year, more than 3 million American teenagers contract sexually transmitted diseases, causing emotional harm and serious health consequences, even death." It expresses support for "efforts to educate teens and parents about the health risks associated with early sexual activity and provide the tools needed to help teens make healthy choices." Then it adds, "Abstinence from sexual activity is the only protection that is 100 percent effective against out-of-wedlock pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases."
Yes, but talking about abstinence turns out to be easier than abstaining. More than 60 percent of high school seniors report having had sex at least once. The message that every family should take from Bristol Palin's pregnancy is: It can happen here.
Except Sarah Palin opposes programs that teach teenagers anything about contraception. "The explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support," she said in answering a questionnaire from the conservative Eagle Forum during her 2006 gubernatorial race. McCain has voted to increase abstinence-only funding, voted to terminate the federal family planning program and voted against funding teen pregnancy prevention programs. He voted to require teens seeking birth control at federally funded family planning clinics to obtain parental consent.
Being a teenager means taking stupid risks. The best, most attentive parenting and the best, most comprehensive sex education won't stop teenagers from doing dumb things. The most we as parents can hope for is to insulate our children, as best we can, from the consequences of their own stupidity. I have two daughters back home, 11 and 13 -- close enough to Bristol's age that I cannot comfort myself that her situation is a far-off irrelevance. When I talk with them about this news, I will use the moment to convey this admittedly muddled message: Wait, please. But whenever you choose to have sex, at some distant moment, don't do it without contraception.
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