What offends me the most about how the right-wing talking heads are playing this mess.

[Liberal Veteran]

Yes, it is a problem that many families from all walks of life happen to face, but pretending every family is a carbon copy is the real problem.

On the bright side, unlike many families, at least there won't be the kind of hand-wringing on how this teen is gonna take care of her baby and provide for it.

Choosing to keep the baby is lot easier when one is born into a well-off family, I guess.

It sorta reminds me of the same kind of smugness that republicans do when they talk about pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. It never occurs to them that choices for one set of circumstances where one has ALL the advantages of life could be different for those who aren't as well-connected.

Bristol's story is likely to have a relatively happy ending. But for every person like her, there are a hundred or more that have to choose between keeping the baby and dropping out of school and working at dead-end job with nothing to fall back on. Thus perpetuating a cycle of poverty.

That's the real-life tragedy that separates compassionate democrats from pious republicans. We actually get it that people don't have the same backgrounds and circumstances and that it has a HUGE impact on the choices one can make and the options one has in life.

I feel a little sorry for Bristol that she is thrust into this spotlight, but thousands of girls every year wish that public scrutiny was the worst of their problems with regards to an unplanned pregnancy.

[DangerDave921]

1. Good point

Bristol will have the financial support and close family to help her, and can likely still go to college and have a decent future. But it's different for the girl (whether city or rural) born to a poor, uneducated, single-parent household with no emphasis on education.

I think birth control is a good message. But I also think it's good to teach kids to wait to have sex until they're older and more ready to accept responsibility. The two messages are not mutually exclusive.