Bristol Palin: Speaking Out for Abstinence

Abstinence is the only 100% effective and foolproof way to prevent pregnancy, she says.

SUMMARY: Eighteen-year-old Bristol Palin, daughter of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, has been selected by the Candie's Foundation to help create awareness of the negatives of teen pregnancy. On Wednesday, along with "Heroes" actress Hayden Panettiere and Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Matt Garza, who had once been a teen father himself, she spoke to a group of 150 teens at a town meeting at the Times Center with reaction to her comments mixed.

Palin gave birth last December to a baby, Tripp, who is only a few months younger than her youngest brother, Trig. Her pregnancy was announced during her mother Sarah Palin's campaign as the Republican vice-presidential candidate. Tripp's father, Levi Johnson, had been engaged to Bristol but has since broken off the engagement.

In an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," Bristol Palin said abstinence was the only 100% effective and foolproof way to prevent pregnancy. She said comments she had previously made that appeared to downplay the role of abstinence education were taken out of context (see previous story). To the students Palin stressed how having a baby caused her to cancel her plans of going to college outside of Alaska and how it had put her "life on the fast track."

Some of the students who heard Palin speak accused her of hypocrisy since she is a teen mother now speaking out against teen pregnancy. Others said her message about abstinence was unrealistic for today’s teen-agers. One student was quoted as supporting Palin’s efforts.

The Candie’s Foundation’s aim is to educate teens about the consequences of teen pregnancy, and that was evident in posters it placed on the stage which suggested problems the teens may be having with parents and school were minor compared to the inconveniences of having to take care of a baby. According to the Foundation, the United States has the highest rate of teen pregnancies in the industrialized world. Each year, some 750,000 American teens get pregnant, and, like Palin, 8 out of 10 do not marry the father.

To read the entire article click on this ABC NEWS link.

COMMENT: Leave it to the ABC News to make the negative comments by the students as much a part of this story as the scope of the problem of teen pregnancy this nation is facing and the efforts of Bristol Palin and the Candie’s Foundation to counteract it. To its credit though, this ABC article did not mention abortion as a solution to teen pregnancy.

Although I am not a big viewer of television, it is my impression the entertainment divisions of the networks along with Hollywood are causing viewers to overindulge in the notion of “free sex.” It’s bad enough to advocate such a notion but even worse to fail to mention any of the possible consequences. Is it any wonder then that students and others question the effectiveness of an abstinence campaign when people are being bombarded on all sides by the “if it feels good, do it” message?

Here in Wisconsin we are getting closer to a statewide ban on smoking, even in taverns and virtually all workplaces. Lawmakers are recognizing the dangers of even second-hand smoke on the health of our citizens. Yet, whenever someone suggests placing limits on the content of television shows, the cries of “censorship” and “free speech” are invariably raised. The figure of three-quarters of a million teens getting pregnant every years suggests that many people could be getting hurt by watching the indecent shows just as many people are being hurt by tobacco smoke.

By the way, I don’t think the students who accused Bristol Palin of hypocrisy are on target. It seems to me that hypocrisy means to give advice without making any serious effort to follow that advice. I don’t believe that one can call what this young lady is doing hypocrisy--offering advice after she had experienced a failure. I pray that Bristol Palin will be given the strength to resist all future temptations.

The good news, of course, is that all sins are forgivable and forgiven. Our efforts to live according to God’s wishes are because of our love for the Savior and our thankfulness over the forgiveness for all our sins which He won for us on the cross. Our love for Jesus should take precedence over our love for any other person because His love for us and for His Father’s will took precedence over any other factor.

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

What infamous work was Soviet scientist Ilya Ivanov (1870-1932) known for in the mid 1920s?

Funded by the Soviet government, Ivanov (picture from Wikipedia) tried to hybridize humans and apes by artificial insemination. After three failed attempts to produce hybrids from human males and chimpanzee females, he continued the experiment using ape males and human females. His work ended after at least five of the women died.

Source: Acts & Facts (May, 2000)