Palin, Women's Rights and Responsible Contraception

The media likes to see who is on what side of what - what the issues are. I was listening to NPR and the commentators were trying to figure out who was more likely to take up Palin's side as far as having 5 kids and being the Vice President nominee.

So on the one hand there are people who think it's dreadful to question a mother being the VP (or President apparently - since that could be likely with McCain and his age and cancer history). Like - what's to question?

Some people think that with 5 kids - one being a Down's Syndrome infant - that she would be too busy.

Of course there are nanny's and husbands and such.

But I think the issue ought to be responsible contraception.

People think nothing of questioning "teenage pregnancy". It seems that the thinking goes that if teenagers are going to have sex - they should at least use reliable birth control.

I see the problem with Palin is that she is against birth control. For her, for her 17 year pregnant daughter, for everyone.

If she, as a responsible adult, had limited her children to 2, there wouldn't be an issue. Her children would be fairly well grown up by now. She would have been modeling responsible parenthood, including using birth control, for her children. Her 17 year old may well not have gotten pregnant at 17 (or 16?).

Continuing to have children into ones 40s because one doesn't believe in any kind of birth control, having a child with down syndrome (not so unusual for 40 year old mothers) as if that is so much more noble and "pro-life" than being concerned for all life on the planet, is just wrong.

It's not like she doesn't have more than enough children - she is going to keep having them whether her body gives her the message that it's past time to stop or not.

There is more of a problem here than teenagers who don't know better - because 44 year olds really should know better by that age. And maybe they would if our society/culture/media/church/etc. were to expect responsible birth control instead of supporting ridiculous ideas such as birth control is murder or that it doesn't matter how many kids people have - as if people make no impact on the planet. As if there is no global warming....

And now - Palin in the limelight - is not setting a good example. The right-wingers who deny global warming and who think that any birth control is wrong must be loving it.

The big CHOICE these days - is do you support the planet and other people who are already alive (by choosing to limit one's number of births).... OR do you support the idea that fertilized eggs are sacred (no birth control pills, no IUDs, no abortions - perhaps not even sterilization), that science is bogus, and that people should procreate until the world fizzles out or ends in a war over lack of resources for the number of people that are alive.

IOW - we have so-called murder (of 10 celled "babies", embryos & fetuses) or extinction of many entire species, mass starvations, more diseases, birth defects, a toxic, stressed out planet, inadequate water supplies, energy, etc. Take a side.