Punished With a Baby

This is now the new line from Sarah Palin in her attacks against Barack Obama. But what she's doing is taking his statement out of context. His original statement from March 2008 was:

"When it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include -- which should include abstinence education and teaching the children -- teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual," he said.

"But it should also include -- it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old," he added.

"I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby,"

I hate to tell Sarah, but having a baby when you're not ready can be a punishment. If she doesn't care for the word punishment she can substitute that with many others. How about devastating. It's not the baby itself, it's the life situation of having that child at a young age that can be punishment. Her parsing of words completely misconstrues the message Obama was talking about. She ought to look at what life has in store for her own 17 year old pregnant daughter. I've seen that movie before in my own family.

My younger sister became pregnant at 16 and,like Bristol will have, had a shot gun wedding. It turned out to be a nightmare. Her education stopped. By the time she was 18 she had 2 children and a drunken, abusive husband. He beat her up the night they were married, pregnant and all. In the next 8 years of that marriage he not only beat her but the children as well. I saw what he did and was shocked. I implored her to leave but she was scared and thought religion demanded she stay married...to suffer through it. But it wasn't just her suffering; it was also her children. The final straw was the day he put a loaded gun to her head. That was when she finally had the courage to leave.

But the effects of her situation only became graver. Now she was on her own with 2 young children, no education and an ex that refused to pay the $50 a month child support the court ordered. For a time she sank into a world of drugs, alcohol and depression. She struggled to make ends meet; ended up on welfare for a time before finally settling into life as an underpaid, overstressed factory worker. Sadly, she'd had dreams of being an accountant; she had been amazing with numbers and bookkeeping in school but as a single Mom she had no money or time to think about going back to school.

Thankfully both her children turned out to be successful. One has graduated from college and the other manages a Walgreens. They had great support from the rest of us. However, not every family has that kind of support structure. But my sister? Today she's 53 years old and suffers from depression and is still fighting her way through life working 2 jobs...factory worker and maid at the hometown Hilton Hotel.

Now, this story is not to advocate for abortion. It's to advocate for education. Comprehensive, appropriate sex education to include the teaching of abstinence. Not simply abstinence only. It amazes me how so many think information will "cause" their child to have sex and that will lead to abortion. How silly. If teens have the correct information they are able to make better choices which can, in turn, reduce the number of pregnancies and abortions. But let me be clear, I do support a woman's right to choose but I want them all to be informed first.

If Sarah Palin thinks that teens being taught abstinence only and having babies so young is not punishment I have a bridge in Alaska to sell her.