Palin's Grandchild

Sadly, we have our first chink in the armor of Sarah Palin; her 17 year old daughter is pregnant out of wedlock. This is of course a family issue and must be dealt with on that level, and it is apparently being viewed as such. Good; that is well and proper. How it should not be seen is as an example of why abstinence only sex education is flawed. Laura Berman, a sex psychologist, asserted on the later edition of the Today show this morning that teen pregnancy is typically only delayed in an abstinence only environment. Teens still need, according to the erstwhile doctor, to be taught contraceptive use. What this woman ignores is the very real and obvious truth that you can’t call something wrong (in this case sex outside of wedlock, or at the least sex outside of being able to handle the likely results of sex) and in the next sentence tell people how to do that same very wrong thing and not get caught in an unwanted situation. It is double talk which can only lead to cynicism, and any young lad or lass of any intellect will see that. We do not teach our young that stealing is wrong yet also tell them how to get away with it if they elect to take someone else’s property anyway. If I tell John Jones that it is wrong to steal Sam Smith’s ten dollars yet follow it up with the explanation that if he must take it, do it when Sam is looking the other way, I am in fact telling John that it’s okay to steal, plain and simple. There can be no other conclusion unless you’re intellectually dishonest. And if you’re that, well, we have a window into your soul. Let’s just pray you have the sense to draw the curtain.