I usually avoid jumping on news stories, but this one was too mind-boggling to ignore.
I mean really, what the hell is this?
The gist is that our soon to be President (come on, what really are the odds that John McCain couldn't die in office faster than William Henry Harrison?) is going to be a grandmother. And if you're wondering why, since she looks so young, it's because her 17-year old daughter is having a baby. Of course the "Family Values" crowd denounced this. I mean, come on, a girl not even out of high school having a daughter? Oh the moral decay! Is there some way we can blame this on Paris Hilton?!
Ha! Of course they didn't! They're in fact lauding this, because a girl who isn't even at the minimum age to drink alcohol, not even old enough to be drafted, is keeping the damn thing.
Said Evangelical Leader Richard Land: "This is the pro-life choice. The fact that people will criticize her for this shows the astounding extent to which the secular critics of the pro-life movement just don't get it. Those who criticize the Palin family don't understand that we don't see babies as a punishment but as a blessing. Barack Obama said that if one of his daughters made a mistake and got pregnant out of wedlock, he wouldn't want her to be punished with a child. Pro-lifers don't see a child as punishment."
First off, the hypocrisy here is just nauseating. I don't doubt for a second that if Barack Obama's daughters had that kid they would cut him to pieces whether his daughter had the kid or not. You can't tell me that John Hagee or James Dobson wouldn't blatantly attack Obama's legitimacy on Family Values issues, especially after his having left his Church. Just like a Governor who consorts with prostitutes is far more of a threat than a baptist preacher who likes to unwind after an anti-drug, homophobic sermon with crystal meth and a bit of man-on-man romping, they clearly don't care about sins nearly as much as who does them.
But even that is beside the point here. And that is that a 17-year old girl is not fit to raise a child, especially without a steady partner, and that's for the same reason you shouldn't let an 9-year old drive, she simply isn't mature enough, end of story. Plenty of 17-year olds are smart enough to know that. Bristol Palin is just lucky she isn't one of the so many who aren't financially secure enough to have a child, but to whom these Evangelical Demons still think the same rules should apply. You know, all those people who can't afford organic baby food and 24-hour nannies?
And that just covers the needs of the mother, what about the child for Christ's sake? This is a boy or girl not asking to be brought into the world, and their happiness, emotional stability and livelihood are dependent entirely on the parent. The reason the option to end a life should be an option to the parent (the parent, not you) should not be viewed as murder, but saving someone from a life that is far short of what they deserve. If your child commits suicide, it is not their fault, but yours for not helping them to exist in a world since you decided they should.
I don't know much about Sarah Palin, but I think all you would need to know about her for any reason could be summed up here. That is, whether or not she was able to put politics aside and simply be a sympathetic human being to someone who may well have to be one herself.
Abortion is a human issue, not a religious issue, and there is no sanctity in possibly damning another human being to a life of loneliness and emotional torment they don't deserve because you're too afraid of being damned yourself.
