Michelle Goldberg thinks Bristol's abstinence campaign is backfiring:
A U.S. government report from last year found that a fifth of sexually active girls actually welcomed a pregnancy. Some girls, seeking love and a purpose in life, are getting pregnant.
This shouldn’t be surprising. Teenagers from poor families see that they have little besides parenthood to look forward to. Meanwhile, America has come to fetishize pregnancy to an unprecedented degree. Magazines obsessively track celebrity baby bumps. Paparazzi stalk famous toddlers. Reproduction has turned nobodies like Kate Gosselin and the girls on MTV’s Teen Mom into stars.
Palin is the apotheosis of this phenomenon. She might say that pregnancy is something to be avoided, but the story of her life speaks louder. If you’re cute and lucky, it says, getting pregnant can be a way to get paid lots of money for doing nothing at all.
(Photo illustration from The Daily Beast.)
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