Reply #32: K & R - excellent post, Skinner

[Triana]

What irks me is that Sarah Palin runs on the "family values" business, is against abortion, birth control, and is for "abstinence only" and zero sex ed.

Now, besides being grossly hypocritical (family values?) her chosen ideology obviously does not work and her own daughter is the poster-child for that fact at the moment. It's both annoying - and sad - though as you say is no fault of her daughter's and no reason not to wish Bristol Palin the very best in her situation.

There is a tie-in with this situation in regards to policy - the policy of choice for women. Palin is severely anti-choice. That her teenage daughter is illegitimately pregnant (and likely forbidden to get an abortion even if she wanted one, did not have the education or permission to use any birth control and is being forced to marry the father) ties directly into that. Again, she is the unwilling poster-child for why those policies do not work. A forced marriage to the father of a child conceived outside of marriage rarely lasts.

It's sad - for Bristol and of course I too, wish her the very best though knowing how these things typically turn out, haven't much hope for her happiness, regardless how much she innocently deserves it.

It's annoying because it ties directly into McCain's and Palin's anti-choice and anti-woman ideologies and policies and into their very hypocrisy regarding "family values"

BUT - as you say, the child - Bristol should be off limits and not be plastered all over TV screens and newspapers. What SHOULD be plastered there are headlines questioning of the POLICIES and IDEOLOGIES McCain and Palin support and believe are viable, if they really work (obviously not), if they make sense, and if they are even moral given all the lives permanantly affected by unplanned pregnancies.

I agree that Bristol shouldn't be talked about or publicized herself. What SHOULD be the subject of this national conversation is not Bristol herself, but instead - how her situation and many others like hers tie into POLICY regarding women, women's rights, and a woman's control, education, and choice about her own body and life and how and why the "family values" supposedly adhered to by the religious right who have co-opted the Republican Party - do NOT value families, ultimately.

Or, at least that's my .02

I feel sorry for Bristol and of course I wish her the best.