Pregnancy is a biological consequence of sexual intercourse. Sexual intercourse is a lifestyle choice of an individual, whether within or without a matrimonial context.
The decision to have sex or otherwise is strictly one's freedom. All these are part of an individual liberty.
In conservative societies, what matters is whether a child is born in a wedlock. The age of the mother and/or the father is mostly irrelevant. In liberal societies, teenage pregnancy is seen as a legitimate exercise of one's liberty.
Until as recently as the 20th century, most first born child in human history are probably result of teenage pregnancy.
The medical science recognizes that adolescent sexuality starts with the onset of puberty and this may mean as young as 8 or 9 years old. This doesn't mean that sexual freedom starts at 8 or 9 years old.
The widely accepted age of consent (coded in positive term) is within the range of 12-18 years old.
With urbanization and individualism becoming more entrenched in the modern society, teenage pregnancy creates a lot of social issues - abortion, infanticide, abandoned child, child abuse or neglect and single family.
The primary responsibility expected of parents, whether teenage or otherwise, toward the child remains the same - shelter, clothing, food, healthcare, education, love and care.
The crux of the issue of teenage pregnancy is often that the teenage parents (especially those without family support) are not economically able and sometimes psychologically ill-prepared to take up the parental responsibility.
Whether or not the society has a mechanism in place to assist such family (if exist), the child to teenage parents is more likely to suffer as a consequence.
This is not to say that older parents are always able to look after the child. This is also not to say that the teenage parents are unable to provide for the child. The point here is the probability of such happening.
The problem becomes exacerbated as there is often a vicious cycle with children to teenage parent becomes teenage parents themselves. All the social issues are then recycled.
How to reduce teenage pregnancy when the teenager are entitled to sexual freedom and the reproductive right?
Abortion is an option but it remains highly contentious in many societies including America that is represented by pro-life and pro-choice camps . The modern trend is toward legalizing abortion subject to certain conditions.
It maybe legally permissible in many societies, it is nevertheless scorned by the religious conservatives. With the society torn between secular right for pro-choice and religious or moral diktat for pro-life, pregnant teenager may have make a decision one way or the other to the regret of her life.
Sexual education, on the other hand, is the less contentious solution and less effective device.
Following the nomination of Gov. Sarah Palin as the Republican Vice President nominee, this has generated some attentions because of her 17 years old daughter who is pregnant.
Sarah Palin's pregnant teenage daughter is surely off limit.
Sarah Palin herself is not. She ought to be vetted for her record as an individual in all her different capacities.
Surely she cannot be faulted for her teenage daughter's exercise of sexual freedom. Likewise she cannot be faulted for the pregnancy.
The question is whether she discharges her parental responsibility to educate her children regarding sex and its consequence.
She is reportedly believed in sex education for children at school and at home.
What is not clear is what she wants to teach. Abstinence is favored and contraception is scorned by large number of religious conservatives, a core base of Republican support.
This may have confused her or she may have deliberately chosen to be imprecise because abstinence is an off mainstream idea and would have alienated her from many Hillarite supporters who are likely to subscribed to the idea that contraception is a responsible sexual practice for all ages.
If Sarah teaches abstinence, she fails. If she teaches contraception, she also fails. It is therefore not know whether she teaches, and if so, what she teaches.
Americans deserve to know her view on this. Hillarite supporters and independents stay tune!
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5 comments:
Well, its not easy being a parent so parenting is not really something that anyone but children should be allowed to judge. Ironically, BO's grandparents had the same dillemma when his mother got pregnant with him all 48years ago!
Assured, mine is a partisan view, but ironically the news of the pregnancy is least dodgy part of Sarah Palin's story.
Sooner or later, the cynicism of the current GOP campaign will be clear to most people. Notice how they take the fine art of doing a nasty and within a split second play victim of the same outrage. In my experience, only Ah Pian does it with thicker skin and shorter memory. I am confident that even with the short campaign season (early voting in Iowa starts Sep 23, in Ohio on Sept 30), voters will awaken to the GOP's sheer bankruptcy in both credibility and logic.
Already, the narrative that the GOP has written for the Governor strains belief. Her story that she killed the bridge to nowhere has been proven to be untrue. Her response, to repeat the lie. Furthermore, the bridge was killed but Alaska kept the money anyway. She is touted as a fighter against lobbists and waste but is a champion at lobbying for earmarks.
They say she is a fiscal conservative in cutting spending and taxes, when she cut only 2% from the budget requests and her most notable achievement was raising taxes on oil companies.
But its the integrity issues that stands out. Now its revealed that she has been collecting per diem payments for staying in her own home, occasionally for her children and husband for dubious 'official travel' and using tax-payers' money for travel expenses for her family including to travel to a snowmobile competition where the husband won. People have been fired for less.
A new story emerged that she was warned repeatedly by a judge not to make disparanging remarks about her ex-brother in law. This is the same trooper that she and her husband pressured the state to fire, and when the chief trooper refused he lost his job - an incident that a bipartisan committee of the Alaskan Congress is investigating.
What is truly Ah-Pian about her is that she can completely change her stance and story without realising she was saying or doing the bare-faced opposite before before.
One thing that the GOP knows is fight. The ticket does not have any issue or any foreign policy position where the response isn't to fight. Fighting and attacking is what they do and sometimes enough people are fooled for them to win. The Governor's speech was all about fighting and attacking Obama-Biden, mostly with outright lies and distortions. Its amazing to see what freedom of speech has become, which is more reason why I can see democracy is not for the uneducated and uninformed. The pundits are in a swoon to find someone who can slash and attack in a somewhat original packaging. But when the fighting and attack is over, the same GOP bankrupt of credibility and ideas still stares in the face.
This is a sad commentary coming from someone who is a big fan of Reagan and Bush I (although later, for Clinton in 1992 and 1996 - I never backed the losing candidate since 1980). I favour George W Bush for his last 2 elections, and consider his legacy to be less worse than often thought. I was supportive of the war in Iraq (after listening to Tony Blair stating the case before the British House of Commons) and is pleased for the surge. So if history shows me to be a GOP-leaning swing voter, this shows how much I am sold on Barack Obama and everything I am seeing from the GOP just makes it worse for them.
when i was writing the piece. i was, at one point, thinking in the confucianist mode. In the sense that if one didn't lead well in family, how could she leads her community and country.
I quickly dismissed the thought and premised upon the notion of individual responsibility.
At no time, I am holding her vicariously responsible for her daughter's freedom exercise.
Like what you say - parenting - is tough, it is more of the reason to seek out her view as a VP nominee on sex education and the phenomena of teenage pregnancy and particularly the parental role and responsibility in both aspects.
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My mom was 19 when I was born. Sub-consciously within me there is an eagerness to find an appropriate approach dealing with this issue.
This is especially so when I am the eldest brother to 4 younger siblings.
I believe in sex education and i believe in giving full information and making resources available for teenager to make their decision. Abstinence is a choice as much as contraception is a choice.
You can teach both but definitely not abstinence over contraception.
Agreed. My favourite approach is what one teacher told my daughter: "if you are afraid of something, learn more about it". Knowledge is the foundation of making an informed choice.
It is becoming quite clear that the GOP is not about governing, its about winning elections. Selecting Palin has nothing to do with her positions rather its an attempt to change the storyline. Its a bait for people to talk about her and preferably generate some drama so 60 days later, people will forget why they are voting in the first place. Its a weapon of mass-distraction, which is being taken to new depths.
So it is now a chance for our man Barack Obama to prove his chops as a political master !! I am sure, as always, he will rise to the occasion with intelligence and class. Obama is a winner. He has the attitude of a winner - and when he wins this, he can really go to 1600Pennsylvania Ave having earned the right to be there. Not affirmative action, not a flash in the pan, not dumb luck but with real abilities to beat the 2 greatest political machines - the Clinton Machine and the GOP political operation.
I just contributed $25 to the Obama campaign making my first political contribution ever. I realised yesterday that its no use being good talking about things, it is our choice to do something positive. No matter how you see it, the US Government is a very powerful force for good or othherwise. No matter what issue you care about, you want decisions made in the White House to be on yourside. For my token contribution, I hire Obama to do the job.
your latest action is very interesting - political contribution from a non-American individual.
perhaps many of the 200k folks showing up for Obama's speech in Berlin did the same.
It is not new that american politics can be and has been influenced by overseas lobbyist contribution.
political contribution has been democratized by internet across borders and transcend nationalities.
this is a form of active political participation, depending on whose side one takes, either distorting domestic democracy or promoting international democracy.
i think what you did is not different from hollywood celebrities who spoke against China on Tibet, Sudan on Darfur or foreigners who protested during Beijing Olympic.
it is legitimate.
you may not have aware - lately your entries and comments and latest your political contribution - are very obamized.
i say this because I wonder if you will consider american naturalization eventually?
there are so much more positive strengths in the american system and society that we all admire and it must have meant a lot more to you since you and your family live there.
i am asking myself the same question too after almost 9 years in HK.
Naturalization is not something that I plan or aspire to :)
I am choosing to be more overt in my support for Obama because of one impulse; and that is we should be more confident of showing where we stand. One thing I learnt from being in US is that having a political life, having political views and involving in activites as part of a democratic process is seen as a normal part of life. In Asia, we talk-and-talk in the barber shops, in the coffee shops and at home but very few walk the talk.
Having said that, political contributions is allowed only for US citizens and lawfully permitted residents. I didnot check but I guess I belong in that grey area; which I think is sensible because anyone who is here but not a tourist should have a voice in the environment they live in.
Not to trivilize the ISA case of RPK whose blog I often read, but I would like to link my above comment to this example.
Actually, I was jolted into contributing when as I sent my daughter to school yesterday I saw an older student coming to school in an Obama T-shirt. Such confidence in his views I thought, as a teenager not afraid of ridicule by his friends for supporting a political candidate. In Asia he would be taken to the principle's office. We accept that 'logic' without really questioning why that should be the case. His friends even if sympathetic might snigger and say nothing.
Now fast forward to adulthood, that is the same 'logic' that allows the government to take people in on ISA and not expect much public reaction. Its conditioning.
In both democracy and in the rule of law, we can only benefit from examining our life long conditioning since childhood.
On a side note, being on the Obama Campaign email list I was sent an invite, last August, to attend a 2-day training camps in "organizing techniques". There were 5 such camps in NY state alone in August. The idea is to train up volunteers for a massive get-out-the-vote effort. Anyone attending the training also has to commit 5 weeks from beginning of October to be a deputy precinct leader in a swing state. I was blown away by American style grassroot democracy at its best. People taking leave from school and from work to work 18 hour days for at best a small stipend and sleeping on the floor. All I know is that as an employer, if I see this on some kid's CV I will try to give him a job. Because at the very least this guy has belief, passion, commitment and perseverance; not to mention real life skills knocking on doors, talking to strangers and persuading them of his viewpoint. Whoa! I felt I caught a glimpse of the power of the American political culture.
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