Page 1 of 1

Palin Family Values

Posted: 09-04-2008 04:05 PM
by Conspiracy Theorist
Elizabeth Schulte explains that, beneath their family values rhetoric, Sarah Palin and the Republicans care very little for women and their children.

September 4, 2008


The Palins and the McCains poses for photos before Sarah Palin's announcement as McCain's running mate

THE TIMING couldn't have been better to reveal the hypocrisy at the heart of the party that claims to stand for "family values."

On the same day John McCain's running mate Sarah Palin announced that her 17-year-old, unmarried daughter was five months pregnant, the Republicans were passing a campaign platform that supported increased funding for abstinence-only education.

With rumors swirling that the youngest of the family's five children, 5-month-old Trig, was actually Bristol's baby, Sarah Palin offered up her daughter to the lions--announcing that the teenager was pregnant and preparing to get married.

And with that, a party that ordinarily vilifies so-called "unwed mothers" and "deadbeat dads" started shaping what should be Bristol Palin's personal decision, and hers alone, to its election-year benefit.

James Dobson of the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family argued that the Palins "should be commended once again for not just talking about their pro-life and pro-family values, but living them out, even in the midst of trying circumstances." He added, "It really means is that she and her family are human"--unlike, presumably, Mary Cheney, who Dobson attacked in 2006 for having a child with her same-sex partner.

Nevertheless, it was hard to spin the revelation as a red-letter moment for the Republicans' support for abstinence education to replace the sex education programs that actually prevent unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

As the GOP's 2008 platform states:

We renew our call for replacing "family planning" programs for teens with increased funding for abstinence education, which teaches abstinence until marriage as the responsible and expected standard of behavior. Abstinence from sexual activity is the only protection that is 100 percent effective against out-of-wedlock pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS when transmitted sexually.

We oppose school-based clinics that provide referrals, counseling and related services for abortion and contraception.

McCain and Palin are both sworn enemies of women's reproductive rights, including birth control and sex education.

McCain has voted against funding teen pregnancy prevention programs. He has also voted to require teens seeking birth control at federally funded family planning clinics to obtain parental consent. Palin agrees. "The explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support," Palin promised in her response to a conservative Eagle Forum questionnaire distributed among gubernatorial candidates in 2006.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

ABSTINENCE-ONLY education hasn't failed because there isn't enough funding for it, but because it plainly does not work. A congressionally mandated evaluation of federally funded abstinence-only-until-marriage education programs, released last year by Mathematica Policy Research, found that these programs had absolutely no effect on the sexual abstinence of youth.

The nine-year study was initiated in 1997 to measure the effectiveness of abstinence programs, which were first funded as part of Democratic President Bill Clinton's Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996--the infamous welfare "reform" legislation that cut millions of poor families from the welfare rolls.

The federal government spends at least $177 million each year on abstinence-only programs, the Guttmacher Institute pointed out last year, but there is currently no federal funding for comprehensive sex education.

That's $177 million for nothing. Actually, worse than nothing.

Texas--a state that pushes abstinence-only and demands parental consent before teenagers can get contraception--leads the nation in teen pregnancies. Meanwhile, sexually transmitted diseases, especially among young girls, are on the rise. A study earlier this year by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that one in four young women ages 14 to 19 was infected with at least one of four common sexually transmitted diseases.

As for the $177 million, what does it buy? Much of what is taught in abstinence-only programs is as appropriate to a school health class as creationism is in biology class. A 2004 review of 13 such programs found these examples of misinformation taught as fact: A 43-day-old fetus is a "thinking person"; HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be spread via sweat and tears; women who have an abortion "are more prone to suicide" and become sterile 10 percent of the time.

Palin's position on the right to choose shows how little respect she has for women's right to decide what they do with their own bodies. She opposes abortion, even in the case of rape and incest. In 2006, she was asked whether she would oppose abortion even if her daughter, 14 at the time, was raped. Palin said, "I would choose life."

But this "support" for a woman's decision to have a child depends on you finding your own way to pay for it.

Earlier this year, Palin eliminated funding for a state program for teen mothers in need of shelter. "After the legislature passed a spending bill in April," reported the Washington Post, "Palin went through the measure, reducing and eliminating funds for programs she opposed. Inking her initials on the legislation--'SP'--Palin reduced funding for Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent, cutting funds from $5 million to $3.9 million."

Despite their family values rhetoric, Palin and the Republicans care very little for women and their children.

A sane government would support the right of women to end unwanted pregnancies and provide the funding they need to care for children if they choose to have them--with quality child care and other social programs available to all poor and working families.

But those aren't the family values that Palin and the Republicans are talking about.

Posted: 09-04-2008 04:22 PM
by DarkhawkX
Conservative Believer
By CLAIRE SUDDATH
Chris Miller / AP


Palin describes herself as pro-life and against same-sex marriage, although she claims to have good friends who are gay. In 2006 while running for governor, she said she would support a ballot initiative that denied benefits to same-sex couples, but her first veto as governor shot down such a bill. (Palin said she vetoed it because the Alaska Supreme Court deemed it unconstitutional, not because she supports gay-marriage rights.) She is Christian and pro-life, but also a supporter of birth control: she's a member of Feminists For Life (FFL), an anti-abortion, pro-contraception organization. In 2002, she wrote a letter to FFL stating that she had "adamantly supported our cause since I first understood, as a child, the atrocity of abortion." She supports the teaching of creationism in public schools, alongside evolution. She is also a lifelong member of the National Rifle Association and supports the constitutional right to bear arms.

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packa ... 38,00.html

Apparently in the Artical that Started this thread the Homework was NOT done She supports Contraception