Posted in full with permisson from the author/researcher, Susan VanPelt, who is a registered nurse living in western Massachusetts. _ _ _ _ _
Revelation of Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter’s pregnancy has unleashed such a flood of horse manure, it’s hard to know where to begin an orderly clean-up.
I was dismayed that even a few bloggers & commentators ostensibly representing the left used Palin’s motherhood and the circumstances of her soon-to-be grandmotherhood to take cheap shots or to question her fitness for the office of Vice President when male politicians do not face the same criticisms or scrutiny. There are plenty of reasons to oppose her without resorting to sexism. The hypocrisy of some conservatives is galling and should be pointed out, but that doesn’t require assuming their postures and tactics.
Predictably, many conservatives’ hysterical over-reactions in defense of the Palins were full of a rather precious hypocrisy, exaggerated claims, and gross distortions. (For an entertaining and enlightening 5-6 minutes, watch Jon Stewart suffer whiplash here.) I’ll get to more on the conservative spin below.
Meanwhile, the mainstream US media (as per usual) kept their heads so far up their own derrieres, they (once again) made themselves the center of the story: commentary was largely comprised of long discussions about whether & how the media should cover the story with loads of pre- and post-scripts expressing best wishes & great sympathy to the Palins. And (also as per usual) reporters highlighted dramatic personal aspects of the story but provided little useful context. (A quick comparative perusal of mainstream coverage from the US and the UK shows dramatic differences in content and tone.)
Much noise was made about avoiding the personal & focusing on the issues, but on this the US mainstream coverage has thus far largely failed. While Bristol Palin’s pregnancy is indeed a private & familial matter, US teen pregnancy is more than hundreds of thousands of individual stories per year; it is a social issue.It is possible & even necessary for reasonable, compassionate and responsible people to wish (and work for) the best for pregnant teenagers but still identify teenage pregnancy and motherhood as a problem. First, some background:
When teens give birth, their future prospects and those of their children decline. Teen mothers are less likely to complete high school and more likely to live in poverty than other teens. Pregnant teens aged 15–19 years are less likely to receive prenatal care and gain appropriate weight and more likely to smoke than pregnant women aged 20 years or older. These factors are also associated with poor birth outcomes. (1)
As with any issue tied to poverty & class in this country, there are also ethnic disparities:
The birth rate among 15-17 year old African American and Latina adolescents is 3 times and 4 times higher, respectively, than the rate for white teens. According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, over half of Latina teens and African American girls will get pregnant at least once before age 20. (8)
Further, the costs of teen motherhood are not (and cannot be) shouldered alone (2,3,9):
The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy recently estimated that $9.1bn in public funding was expended on teenage childbearing in 2004. These costs include public assistance, healthcare, child welfare and other expenses. (2)
So teen pregnancy is a social issue with tremendous consequences, and as a society, we have far to go in addressing it adequately.
From a high of more than 90 per 1000 in the late 1950’s, US annual teen live births fell dramatically to a low of 40.5 in 2005 (4, 2, 5). Between 1995 and 2002, 86% of the drop for all teens and all of the improvement for 18 & 19 year olds resulted from improved contraceptive use (more use or better methods), and the youngest teens showed a small increase in abstinence (22). This still leaves the US far worse than other developed nations at nearly double the rates of Canada or the UK and about four times that of Sweden or France (4, 2). Even more disturbing, the rate rose by 3% between 2005 and 2006 (6, 1).
More than 80% of pregnancies among US women 15-19 years old are unintended and not wanted at that time if at all (1). Abortion rates among teenagers and all women have fallen since the 1980’s (4, 7), and I don’t know anyone who wants to see that rate increase. If teenage motherhood is a problem and teen abortion not the desired outcome, then obviously preventing teenage pregnancy is the solution.
So what works to prevent teen pregnancies?
In the first national study of its kind, University of Washington researchers found teens who had received comprehensive sex education (which typically includes abstinence counseling as well as information about contraception, STD prevention and other issues) were only half as likely to become teen parents but were no more likely to engage in sex than were teens who had received abstinence-only education. These findings are consistent with those of previous non-national studies. They are also in keeping with the pro-comprehensive sex education views of most mainstream pediatricians and educators as well as many progressive and mainstream religious leaders (10, 11, 12, 14, 22).
Unfortunately, US law restricts federal funding for sex education to the non-scientific abstinence-only programs now proven to be failing. The most significant legislation was a conservative Republican initiative included in the 1996 welfare reform package which eventually earned bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Clinton despite widespread progressive and mainstream opposition to that part of the legislation. There’s plenty of blame to go around, but clearly now it’s a law which needs to be changed.
Because of the federal policy, some states & many localities have opted out of federal funding in order to provide more comprehensive sex education. However, in the South, where abstinence-only sex education policies are more likely to be in place (55% of school districts in the South versus a 35% national average and a 20% average in the Northeast), teen birth rates are significantly higher than the nationwide average (4). Interestingly, in some places churches and other faith-based organizations are providing the scientifically-based education lacking in public schools (14).
That some religious leaders find no conflict between their faith and providing comprehensive sex education suggests others might do the same if there were open and honest public dialogue on the matter and if the issues could be re-framed (14, 17). For example, conservative Christians often give primacy to obedience (“to love me is to obey me”), but there’s no reason to assume that obedience must be blind. As teens are in the process of developing greater autonomy in part by questioning authority and testing limits, withholding education may actually be counter-productive: the same UW study previously mentioned also found, “a strong trend indicating that those who received comprehensive education were less likely to engage in sexual intercourse compared to those who received no sex education” (15). In other words, comprehensive sex education achieves greater abstinence and fewer pregnancies than the alternatives.
Conservatives like to chant the mantra of personal responsibility, and decisions around sexual activity are most definitely personal. But if we’re to improve outcomes for our teens, we need to teach teens how to take that responsibility up front and not only after a pregnancy has occurred. As a society, we have a duty to ensure our teens have the adequate resources to take on their personal responsibilities. And we have a fiscal responsibility not to waste taxpayer money on ineffective programs.
In fact, the only reason to continue abstinence-only programs in our public schools is to kowtow to the radical fringe of the Christian conservative movement. The only basis for those programs is religious, and that’s a violation of the separation between church and state. It’s past time to acknowledge abstinence-only programs are faith-based failures which have no room in our publicly funded schools.
We can & must learn from our mistakes, but we can also learn from others’ successes. A comprehensive study comparing the US with other developed nations found no difference in rates of teens’ sexual activity but significant differences in other factors which affected teen pregnancy rates. These differences included social consensus that childbearing is an adult activity, formal programs to assist teens with education and career planning, greater contraceptive access and use, choice of more reliable contraceptive methods, and cultural attitudes which support teen sexuality but set clear expectations for its expression. Teens in other developed countries are not more likely to be sexually active, but they are more likely to be active in healthy & responsible ways, and they are more likely to restrict sexual activity to committed, long-term relationships (4). Americans typically see in terms of black and white, but adolescence is by definition a shade of grey, neither child nor adult, and our social policies should recognize this and promote the transition to real maturity and responsible behavior.
With regard to sex education and teen pregnancy, there are clear differences between the candidates’ positions, their records and their party’s platforms. John McCain and the current Republican platform continue to support exclusively the ineffective & money-wasting abstinence-only programs. McCain has opposed & continues to oppose federal funding for other teen pregnancy prevention programs (16, 18).
campaign spokesperson said McCain believes abstinence is "the only safe and responsible alternative."
"To do otherwise is to send a mixed signal to children that, on the one hand they should not be sexually active, but on the other, here is the way to go about it," according to a statement provided by the campaign. "As any parent knows, ambiguity and equivocation leads to problems when it comes to teaching children right from wrong." (18)
The statement captures much of what’s wrong and counter-productive with the radical right’s thinking on this issue: the lack of scientific basis, the starkly polarized dualisms, the narrowness of view, the thoughtless repetition of old mantra, and the sense of being completely out of touch with mainstream contemporary America – isn’t it telling that except in the South, most American school systems will opt out of federal funding rather than teach exclusively abstinence-only material? Even his running mate, the extreme religious conservative Sarah Palin appears to have more moderate & reasonable views: despite a statement that she would not support “explicit” sex education, she later clarified that she supported teaching condom use and contraception in addition to abstinence (though she did not specify where outside the home that education should be provided nor how it should be funded) (18).
In contrast with the Republicans, Barack Obama and the Democrats call for comprehensive, age-appropriate sex education (19). More impressively, Obama’s statements and record show he “gets” the issue and will address teen pregnancy in a broad, thoughtful and scientifically-based way which goes beyond sex education to include wider cultural and social issues. This is an area where Obama has great appeal to the left, center, and even a significant portion of the right, and he has consistently reached out to religious conservatives to find common ground (8, 20, 21).
Ok, let’s look back for a moment to the point where I started this meandering discourse, the public revelation of Bristol Palin’s pregnancy and the aftermath of that revelation. Many friends, bloggers and pundits immediately cited this as proof Sarah Palin hadn’t been thoroughly vetted, and some predicted she’d soon withdraw. However, I believe Republican insiders knew of the pregnancy in advance and understood exactly how to spin the story for maximum benefit to the ticket. The double-whammy of Sarah and Bristol Palin energize the far right religious conservatives, appeal to working class white men, and evoke the sympathy of soccer moms & dads everywhere while simultaneously distracting public attention from real issues, buying time for a novice to the national political scene to get run through a Republican cram school, and silencing those critics who would otherwise have had a field day tearing McCain and Palin apart on social issues. But now, according to Republicans, to criticize conservatives’ social policy failures is to attack poor Bristol.
Think I’m overstating it?
Take a look at this exchange from Fox news between host Megyn Kelly and McCain’s senior policy advisor Nancy Pfotenhauer:
KELLY: You can only imagine what the 17-year-old is going through now that they have this news made public at a national level, what that's like for her. Notwithstanding that, there were some far left Web sites who go nameless on this broadcast that seem to take advantage of it today. And started saying things like, "So much for abstinence-only education.
PFOTENHAUER: Shame on them for trying to make a political issue out of a private family matter… I would hope that those Democratic bloggers would stand down just out of a sense of common decency, if nothing else. (23)
Since Republicans don’t have policies which represent the best interests of most Americans, they distort and play to emotional responses. Usually that triggered response is misdirected anger or fear, but now it’s sympathy, sympathy for someone who, in the words of her parents’ press release, will soon “grow up faster than we had ever planned” (13). But when conservatives like Pfotenhauer, who officially represents the McCain campaign, deliberately confuse one individual’s story with the broader social issue in order to silence critics and hide Republicans’ failures of policy, it is those conservatives who are using the private matter of Bristol Palin’s pregnancy for political gain. Rational people shouldn’t allow them to get away with it, and we should continue to speak out on the real issue.
If McCain wants to represent change and fiscal responsibility, the Republican position on sex education would be a great place to start. But it would require confronting the well-organized Christian right rather than pandering to them. McCain won’t do this, his rhetoric will continue to contradict his actual policies, and the mainstream media will continue to let him get away with it.
If Obama is to connect with voters and win this election, he needs to explicate his policies and his rationale for them clearly and directly. Obama and his supporters need to reclaim arenas of public discourse from the conservative talking heads. They must also realize they’re no longer preaching to the choir, and a significant number of people in this country don’t “already know what works” (a reference to a Michelle Obama exercise in avoiding any specific answers during the primary season). Swing voters will need the issues outlined for them without (even the appearance of) condescension or impatience.
Of course, teen pregnancy isn’t the hottest topic this campaign year -- “it’s the economy, stupid,” with energy policy & climate change fully enmeshed therein -- but it’s one more example of differences between the parties & the candidates and one more example of the failure of the mainstream US media to report those differences clearly and comprehensively to the public.
As with so many issues, on teen pregnancy the Democrats offer real solutions in keeping with scientific evidence, expert opinion and a broad base of ordinary Americans’ values & aspirations; Republicans represent only a radical fringe. Democrats offer positive change for a better future; Republicans promise to repeat old failures and continue ever further down the wrong road.
Now the burden is on all of us to get the facts out there, get the voters out there, and get the Republicans outta there. For our future’s sake, we need Obama in the White House and a Democratic landslide in Congress.
Please pass the word.
Sources:
1. http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/AdolescentReproHealth/
2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7593735.stm
3. http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/costs/default.aspx
4. http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/05/1/gr050107.pdf
5. http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/healthcare/a/teenbirthsdrop.htm
6. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/05/AR2007120501208.html
7. http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-01-16-abortion-rates_N.htm
8. http://obama.senate.gov/press/070716-obama_introduce_14/
9. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5492896
10. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2004293974_sexed20m.html
11. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8470845/
12. http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_sexEd2006.html
13. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080901/pl_nm/usa_politics_palin_dc
14. http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/11/1/gpr110117.html
15. http://depts.washington.edu/hserv/articles/71
16. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/02/mccain-fought-teen-pregna_n_123132.html
17. http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/09/03/teen.pregnancy.irpt/index.html
18. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-sexed6-2008sep06,0,3119305.story
19. http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/Platform%208%207%2008%20%282%29.pdf
20. http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2007/12/21/sen-barack-obamas-reproductive-health-questionnaire
21. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/28/barack-obama-democratic-c_n_122224.html
22. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061201180530.htm
23. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,415002,00.html
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2006/09/12/USTPstats.pdf
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