Yesterday CNN reported that:
Bristol Palin, the daughter of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, will participate in a town hall meeting on Wednesday to help raise awareness for teen pregnancy prevention, the Candie’s Foundation announced Tuesday.
“I am so happy to have this opportunity to work with The Candie’s Foundation on spreading the message of teen pregnancy prevention,” Palin said in a statement released by the group. “I feel that I could be a living example of the consequences of teen pregnancy. If I can prevent even one girl from getting pregnant, I will feel a sense of accomplishment.”
A quick cruise around the Candie’s Foundation website seems to indicate that their approach to preventing teen pregnancy does not include educating teens about birth control, i.e. the only proven effective way to prevent teen pregnancy. This despite Bristol’s assertion in a February Fox News interview that telling young people to be abstinent is “not realistic at all.” Apparently sometime since then, she’s gotten back on message–her mother’s party’s message.
I’m sure the Palin camp would like us to think of this as “when life hands you lemons, make lemonade” rather than “closing the barn door after the horse is gone.” More importantly, I’m sure it makes Bristol’s mommy happy to have her out there, promoting abstinence. A lot of teenagers living at home feel a strong desire to make mommy happy. Especially when you have a very powerful, charismatic mommy who is your only source of financial and emotional support.
Recently, Bristol’s former fiance, Levi Johnston, went on television and told the whole world that they had sex rather frequently as teens, that the sex was safe “most of the time”–the devil’s in the details, Levi!–and that Governor Palin knew about it.
Whether Levi was truthful or not, he got a lot of publicity for speaking his mind, so the Palin camp needs a good counter-punch. Sending Bristol out on a mea culpa tour would help burnish Sarah Palin’s somewhat tarnished image. Personally, I think Bristol would be better served by staying home, getting an education and spending time with her son. She’s little more than a kid herself, and from what I can tell, she never asked to be the poster child for teen pregnancy or abstinence or anything else.
But I think that Bristol’s best interests fell by the wayside a long time ago.
Becky this totally sums up my feelings on the whole thing. I feel really bad for this girl, she is still living at home and now she is doubly dependent because she has a child and no outside means of support. She looks so unhappy and uncomfortable.
I’m so glad that the party has gotten around to indoctrinating her in the venerable GOP tradition of lying through your teeth.
What a mess.
What does Megan McCain thinks?
The whole thing just reeks of exploitation. I don’t doubt the Palins love their kids, but the way they use them… so slimy.
I think BP is a great example to use when there is a discussion of “choice.” In her last interview (where she pretty much spilled the beans re: abstinence), she asserted that having/keeping Tripp was her choice, and now she’s claiming her choice is to represent a bass-ackwards “educational” initiative. Now, I have not interest in saying she didn’t think about her options and decide upon one of them (likely in consultation with friends, family, etc.), but whatever the reality is, no one could say that a girl in Bristol’s position (and mind, it’s a fairly privileged one in many ways) is “free” to choose whatever she really wants.
I had a brief look around the Candie Foundation website too and it wasn’t as super-abstinence-tastic as I expected… there were mentions of contraception, and advice about parents talking about sex with their kids (which is better than pretending it doesn’t exist), although yes they were few and far between. But it didn’t seem in-your-face don’t-have-sex-ever.
It sucks for Bristol that what for anyone else would amount to small town gossip and infighting between families allied by accident has to occur on a national level.
I don’t believe for a damn second she would have “chosen” to have her teenage business broadcast hither and yon. Since being a teenager pretty much centers on being terrified that everyone knows your business anyway.
[...] and ”not realistic at all.” (At least, that’s what Bristol said before she snapped back into line earlier this [...]
[...] Sarah Palin. You’ve given us so much good material, from contemplating the failure of abstinence-only education or whether feminists like us hate you because you’re just so pretty and [...]