Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Sarah Palin's fuzzy thinking about pregnant teenagers



Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin wrote in her line-item veto (note the initials "SP" in the above document) in this copy of a 2008 spending bill obtained by The Washington Post.

People who make harsh judgments of others are vulnerable when their own shortcomings are exposed. Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin is now one of those people.

Palin cut back on help for other people's pregnant teenage daughters, apparently because she found those girls undeserving of society's support. She also opposed teaching teenagers about contraception. I imagine she's more surprised than I am that her seventeen-year-old daughter is pregnant.


Washington Post
By Paul Kane
Sept. 2, 2008
...Palin reduced funding for Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent, cutting funds from $5 million to $3.9 million.

...According to Passage House's web site, its purpose is to provide "young mothers a place to live with their babies for up to eighteen months while they gain the necessary skills and resources to change their lives" and help teen moms "become productive, successful, independent adults who create and provide a stable environment for themselves and their families."

Palin's own daughter, Bristol, is five months pregnant and has plans to wed...

Earlier today the Associated Press reported that Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, opposed funding to prevent teen pregnancies, a position that Palin also took as governor. "The explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support," she wrote in a 2006 questionnaire distributed among gubernatorial candidates.

Reporters asked McCain in November 2007 whether he supported grants for sex education in the United States, whether such programs should include directions for using contraceptives and whether he supports President Bush's policy of promoting abstinence.

"Ahhh, I think I support the president's policy," McCain said.

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