Bristol Palin: a person, not a political football

The news that Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol is pregnant might seem like a gift for the Democrats; but a word of caution. It is hard enough for a 17-year-old to discover she is pregnant - imagine having to do so in public. I don't really care what her mother's political views are (well actually I do, but not in the context of her pregnancy) - I just feel very sorry for the girl. Politicians must take the rough with the smooth - but their children don't deserve to be shredded in the spin-cycle.

The problem all politicians face is this: people want to see their families; but you never know when the tide is going to turn. When does the engaging, homely photograph turn into cynical media stunt? It's a very fine line to tread. Overstep it, and you open up the entire family to all kinds of attacks (some of the rumours being circulated about Bristol are frankly shameful). Which may be fine if politics is your chosen career; but if you're in the game by an accident of birth, it is monstrously unfair.

Editor's note: Sarah Vine is married to Conservative MP Michael Gove.

Comments

[Gipsy]

Ushi, I'm so sorry you have such a bad relationship with your mother. Please do come to terms with that. You need to sort out that relationship and stop letting it affect your life and how you view the world so much. If there's no hope of being able to change things with your mother, then find a way of letting go of all that hurt and anger. Stop viewing the entire world through it. The world is not your mother, and fighting the fight you have have with your mother with every woman in the world who remotely resembles her will be utterly exhausting and do you no favours. Whoever she is, and whatever she has done, you are worth more than whatever it is that your mum has done to you.

[Ushi]

Nobody on the left is criticising Bristol for having sex before marriage at the age of 17. The criticism is that she is pregnant and she would not be pregnant if she had an abortion. The lefties are not pro choice when women choose life and the spite comes out. Pro abortion women are not pro woman or supportive. I wish the world were not full of them because it would be better without. Just go and find a neighbourhood full of serial killers to live in and get what I mean. You are downright mean and do not know what it means to be a woman. Jesus was conceived out of wedlock and he justifes all the babes and moms. Women do not need to hang their heads in shame because of being lifegivers. I know people who were wanted aborted. The culture of death is utterly sick and grotesque.

[Ushi]

Of course the only thing that offends the left is not that there was teenage sex outside of marriage, not that Bristol is fertile but that she did not get rid of it. If she had had an abortion you would be pleased as so many of you pro choice women persecute women for not killing babies. My mam is one of you and a nightmare! Ask God for a heart because you lost whatever you may have had. That is your problem with the Palins admit it!

[Gipsy]

Eluned, it is controversial in this circumstance because her mother is a prominent politician who has said she will not support sex education in schools. Since no-one has said otherwise, it is presumed that her daughter did not plan to get pregnant - she was not married to the child's father beforehand, and since the father had 'I don't want kids' on his website, having children now is presumably not something they discussed together. Therefore it is not seen as a ringing endorsement of Palin's stance on not supporting sex education in schools.

In other words, if it was only to do with her family values it wouldn't be a problem - but it is to do with values that she wants to impose on everyone (and again, no criticism of that here - that's what politicians are about after all, it is up to the voters to choose whether to vote for them or not and that also adds to my point ... ), therefore what happens in her family is open to scrutiny and can be controversial.

Just to let you know that personally I don't have a problem with people in loving relationships, married or not, choosing to have children after the age of consent. In my family the tendency has been towards early marriages, often before 20. I thought that I was particularly old getting married at 24! And out of 20 cousins, only four have divorced. Quite a few have already celebrated their 25th anniversaries. We have friends who started their family when they were 17, and twenty years later they're still together and going strong. It is possible and quite frequently works.

[Lucy]

Cheryl, I have to say, if I were pregnant, the last thing I would want would be for my mother to have the opportunity to run around guilt-tripping me because she felt the need to take time out of her life. Particularly if I were seventeen. Surely it's reassuring to the girl that her mum trusts her to cope?

[Ad-Mum]

Think about it from the father's point of you. He's a self-confessed 'redneck' who claims not to want children. He accidentally gets his girlfriend knocked up. Not only can he not put his head in the sand and hope the whole thing will go away quietly, but the WHOLE WORLD knows what he's done! I don't know whether to feel sorry for him or whether to find it all rather amusing....

[Eluned]

I don't understand the controversy here. She's seventeen, which, biologically at least, is an ideal age, no? Ok she wasn't married to the guy at the time but they are doing the right and honourable thing and are getting married. What's the big deal? It would be controversial if she'd got rid of it but she hasn't and this family have stuck by their values.

[Cheryl]

I question Sarah Palin's decision to accept the VP nomination knowing her daughter was five months pregnant. Of course this will have a negative affect on her daughter. She's putting her political career first and not her family. A national campaign will put an extreme strain on all of her family, not just her 17 year old daughter but also her five month old child.

[Gipsy]

>>I don't think one teenage girl's pregnancy invalidates the whole abstinence based programme<<

It does for that girl though. And parents are primarily concerned with their own children. If the offspring of a prominent supporter of one method of birth control, who has presumably encouraged their child to use that method of birth control rather than any other, still gets pregnant then it is not a ringing endorsement of that method. As a parent, I have to decide how and at what level I intervene in my child's life and choices I try to encourage. I don't think I'd be too keen on encouraging abstinence only if I wanted my child to avoid getting pregnant as a teen. I would encourage abstinence for sure - 17 is far too young to have sex IMO. But I do know that well before they reach that age I would do two things:

1. ensure they knew all about the role that sex has to play in a loving and committed relationship, and do my best to help them understand how to recognise a loving and committed relationship and not be fooled by their own hormonal rages.

2. that they knew all about condoms, the pill and other methods and knew how to access them if needed.

[mumoftwo]

As for whether politicians' families should always be exempt from comment, in general, I do feel they should. I'm not interested in who had an affair with who and thought the Mosely judgement to be correct (totally up to him and none of anyone's business). However, you can argue that knowing that, for example, a politician is voting to abolish grammar schools, but then sends their child to the local grammar school or private school is in the public interest because it exposes their inherent hypocrisy over their public position. I don't think photos of the child attending the said school, however, would be in the public interest.

[mumoftwo]

I don't think one teenage girl's pregnancy invalidates the whole abstinence based programme, as one girl's pregnancy is just that, her experience, and doesn't have wider statistical significance. Plenty of girls get pregnant on the abstinence programme and plenty get pregnant on the condoms at school/full facts programme (as our own rate of teenage pregnancy testifies). This is because teenage girls like to have sex and so do sometimes get pregnant. The best rates are in countries such as the Netherlands which combine frank discussion with social norms of high achieving at school and valuing their future. I don't personally advocate abstinence based programmes, but I don't think one girl's legal pregnancy at 17 (if indeed their age of consent is 16 in Alaska) means they are all ineffective; there is better evidence out there.

Plus, I know 17 is quite young, it's not 13, is it? I know it might not seem ideal, but neither is having babies in your early forties, as the media never tires of telling us.

[Kate]

Regardless of what you think about the daughter's right to privacy, this does expose the failures of Palin's belief in abstinence only education. It plainly hasn't worked and this will make it very difficult for her to argue otherwise. And it's mucky, but I think it's also fair to ask how much of a real choice Bristol Palin had over keeping this pregnancy. I think everyone can feel uncomfortable with two young people being forced into marriage to keep the political right on board.

[KM]

I think there's a place for media comment on this one. You can't ignore the fact.
But the likely level of media intrusion into her life is going to be hideous, and that's hard for her. Imagine all the ex-boyfriends that the media will be paying money to tell the dirty tale...

By the way, when did this become the Sarah Palin blog?

[Lisa]

It will be interesting to see whether or not this affects how people vote in the up-coming elections. Will Palin lose votes from Fundamentalist Christian groups?

I agree with Sarah though. Bristol did not choose to have her mother go into politics, and shouldn't have her private life splashed across the media.

[Lata]

I felt something good came out of this - Obama said that Palin's daughter's private life was exactly that, and that no-one should meddle with it.

I thought that was a good way to approach this.

[sagae]

she is trying to interfere in other peoples family business-stopping abortions,homosexual marriage etc.
but people cant look at her family?
doesnt make any sense to me

[derek]

It's fun and good to really get to know who someone is, who is trying to take office. Personally Sarah is to much for me to handle. But maybe I'v just seen that picture of her with that assault riffle to many times. And for Pete's sake, the girls name is Bristol... I woulden't vote for her based on that name alone.

[lynne (a working mum)]

Agree with your post Sarah. And to those who think that a parent's political view justifies their nasty remarks about a teenager, do you really think that only girls who are taught abstinence get pregnant? Or that girls of pro-choice advocates always get abortions? Of course not. Families handle these crisis in different ways - some pro-abortion families welcome a baby into their homes, some anti-abortion families decide they're the "exception" and drive the kid to the clinic, and some with either view tell the girl to get out of the house (sad but true). While I'm pro-choice and pro-education, I do not for a minute believe that it will stop unprotected teenage sex, because many teens feel that they love each other and think it's therefore OK and all the lecturing pro and con is ignored. We've got to accept the reality that people invent all kinds of personal reasons for their decisions (not always good, not always bad) and how they live their lives is never perfect. The worst thing to do is to act smug and sanctimonious, and unfortunately that is far too common for the right and the left.

[Isabelle]

It's hard to argue that we should ignore this news about Bristol Palin when her mother's social policies are all based on a fundamentalist interpretation of Christianity that among other things says it's a sin to have sex before marriage. Sarah Palin is all for denying legal rights to gay people, is against abortion even in the case of rape or incest, is a a creationist who is for abstinence only sex ed. The results of which are apparent in her daughter's pregnancy - obviously Palin's approach to sex-ed does not work, and Palin's attacks of people for supposed violations of Biblical law, namely homosexuals and women who have had/want abortions, are obviously hypocritical. I think that the personal lives of politicians become relevant when they make their platform about their morality.

[LM]

Just to clarify - "her policy & its results" in a broader context than just her own daughter.

[LM]

Somewhat agree Sarah - the girl doesn't need to be dragged into a media circus.

But I do think Gvnr. Palin should address the issues /hypocrisy surrounding her sex education policy & its results (abstinence being the only option she supported). That could be done without dragging her daughter into the middle of things and actually it is a serious and important issue in the US where in many places, abstinence is the main or only form of sex education provided. That is a political issue & should be debated - not just shoved under the carpet by the religious fundamentalist right (of which Palin is a signed-up member).

[Delilah]

So, to review: because politicians will draw on personal experiences when making policy, it's OK to dig as much dirt as you can on any stage of a politician's private life, including that of their family?

Could this line of thought be by any chance inspired by the recent Moseley case which confirmed that European law prevents prurient expose's of people's private affairs unless you could show some concrete public interest?

The parliamentary process is the route by which a politician's personal experiences and beliefs become policy. Not the tabloid newspaper process. The parliamentary process requires public pronouncements by the politician, public debates with other elected representatives, and a voting process; compliance or even agreement by the politicians' family is not required, for the simple reason that they are not elected and are free to choose their own way. Far from being in the public interest, this sort of tabloid reporting attempts to undermine and bypass the democratic process.

[Jennifer Howze]

Sarah, really interesting post. It's no wonder so many people avoid going into politics or get out of them because of their families. Yet politicians are making laws that affect our personal lives, these very issues, with our sons and daughters and husbands and wives. Is it possible to discuss the issues and platforms without unnecessarily dragging their family members into it?