Be Not Idle

I was reading about Palinsanity – a term coined by Althouse to describe the vicious attacks on Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. John McCain’s pick for vice-president. The Anchoress (see my blogroll) has a good round-up of stories and opinion.

Personally, I went from flabberghasted to incensed in less than a day. Yesterday I read the sick rumors that Gov. Palin’s youngest child was secretly her grandson (some people need to lay off the romance novels). Now that the Palin family has revealed their oldest daughter is pregnant – and therefore can’t be her brother’s mother - the pundits and opinionated cranks have a whole new bag. The gist of these comments seems to be that 1) because the youngest child has Down’s Syndrome, the Gov. needs to go home and be a mother; and 2) because the 17-year-old is pregnant and preparing to marry the father of the baby, the Gov. needs to go home and be a grandmother.  

Oh, irony!

This weekend I enjoyed visiting with my niece and her husband. They are happy about moving into their first home and are expecting their first child. And they’re 19.  Are they children? No.

Today after school, I ran into a former student who was married this spring. She’s expecting her first child this coming winter. She’s 16 and her husband is 24. Are they children? Heck, no!

The irony is that if Gov. Palin’s daughter had chosen to abort the baby, our society would consider her grown-up enough to make that choice. She needn’t have consulted with her mother, either. A 17-year-old is considered old enough to have sex and deal with the consequences on her own.  Parental consent laws are debated endlessly as a controversial limits on “choice”, aren’t they?

But when it comes to politics, suddenly the lip-service feminists (including the men) have become reactionaries who know that the governor’s ovaries dictate that she must step down.