By Paul Kane
ST. PAUL -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee who revealed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, earlier this year used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live.

After the legislature passed a spending bill in April, Palin went through the measure reducing and eliminating funds for programs she opposed. Inking her initials on the legislation -- "SP" -- Palin reduced funding for Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent, cutting funds from $5 million to $3.9 million. Covenant House is a mix of programs and shelters for troubled youths, including Passage House, which is a transitional home for teenage mothers.

According to Passage House's web site, its purpose is to provide "young mothers a place to live with their babies for up to eighteen months while they gain the necessary skills and resources to change their lives" and help teen moms "become productive, successful, independent adults who create and provide a stable environment for themselves and their families."

Palin's own daughter, Bristol, is five months pregnant and has plans to wed.

"Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family," Palin said in a statement released by the McCain campaign. "We ask the media to respect our daughter and Levi's privacy, as has always been the tradition of children of candidates."

Earlier today the Associated Press reported that Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, opposed funding to prevent teen pregnancies, a position that Palin also took as governor. "The explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support," she wrote in a 2006 questionnaire distributed among gubernatorial candidates.

Reporters asked McCain in November 2007 whether he supported grants for sex education in the United States, whether such programs should include directions for using contraceptives and whether he supports President Bush's policy of promoting abstinence.

"Ahhh, I think I support the president's policy," McCain said.

A mother with a pregnant daughter cut spending for an organization like Covenant House?? And opposed funding to more effective sex-ed programs? This is the kind of person we want as our vice president?

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And.... what's the point? Why should everyone else subsidize an organization like Covenant House. If you are so outraged then write them a check. Don't legislate that everyone else HAS to pay for it.
She should have went 1 step farther and cut funding completely.

Could you define more effective, I don't know anything more effective than NOT FUCKING if you don't want to be pregnant.
I didn't realize we needed to spend money on some new way to tell people to stop fucking if they don't want kids, I thought that was common knowledge?
You realize no matter how much money is spent on "more effective sex-ed programs", people will still fuck and have kids even when they can't or don't want to take care of them. Then those same people will stick their hand out and ask everyone else to pay for them. So what exactly is the problem, and what are you advocating?

Um yeah, sure! Why not? What's the problem? And how does her daughter being pregnant have anything to do with her political position on these items? Am I missing something?
I believe 80%+ of the voters of Alaska applaud and support her and what she did while in office. So what am I missing?
Do we want a vp that will reduce needless spending on social programs programs that do nothing, ABSOLUTELY!
If YOU want to give your money to people that are too stupid to not fuck and have kids they can't support, then go ahead. Don't tell me I have to though, I need my money to support my own son, not someone else's.
Let me guess,
you believe in "change" and "hope" and are "hoping for change", well you are going to get it! I can't wait until she and McCain take office, I can't wait until McCain's 4 years are up and he steps aside and lets Palin take the presidency!!
Thanks for the opportunity to respond to your question, I hope I was clear and you understood what I said!
Could you answer a question for me?
What relevancy does her daughter being pregnant have in the discussion?
Thanks.

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what relevance does palins daughter have. shes a christian with christian values that she wants to push on me, and her christian daughter got pregnant while unwed. i have a problem with that because she wants to push god on me. remember god told her to do it. thats a big problem cause its the same as the muslims sayin allah told me to do it

you want change, mccain and bush basically voted together on everything but torture.

i want kids to be educated about diseases and pregnancy. you dont want education? they learn more about sex on tv falsely, so how would it hurt to learn it in school. isnt education good?

when palin first started as gov. her spending per person was about 800, the rest of the country was about 35. she wasted as much money as anyone else. she has no experience. the most experience she has is do we have enough snow for the snow mobile race.

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1) I agree, they are identical twins. 2) yes, the teen pregnancy rate is unbelievable, the amount of the population with AIDS is rising...

And their idea of sex education is "Abstinence" don't have sex. That's like telling high schoolers to not drink alcohol, and we all know how well that's working out. Just as the alcohol, they need to get on the subject of telling youngsters how to be responsible, rather than hoping we're not going to do things that are very fun.

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Eh I don't agree with this too much. but back to the original poster



Do we know how much the Covenant House of Alaska had in Overhead last year? Was it 5 million? If not then guess what, it is not unusual for businesses to cut departments funding if they do not use the money allotted in their budget. Miss Sarah Palin was a CEO so I'm sure that this was probably a business decision of some sort. (possibly, I obviously don't know what the reason for the cut was).

Also it says she cut funding to the Covenant House, not specifically the Passage House which is responsible for pregnant teens. This is a perfect example of how the media will spin a story to stir up a commotion.

In addition to this having a pregnant teenage daughter and then cutting funding to an organization that helps pregnant teens does not make you a hypocrite. She doesn't believe that the state should have to pay for these young people's mistakes. I feel she's partially right. People are aware that if they mess up there are programs to help them. It's almost like it's ok to be a screw up in this day and age. I'm not that old and even I think that.

Eh.. to be honest I support sex education, but with a large emphasis on abstinence. I feel that the current sex education programs put too much focus on other forms of birth control. That is almost like saying it's ok for them to go out there and have sex.

This not only creates a problem for the teens but also for the parents who have to care for them. Abstinence prevents so many other issues aside from teen pregnancy that I feel there NEEDS to be a stronger focus on it.

I won't judge her cuts until there is much more insight. Alaska isn't a big population state and 5 million is a big budget when considering Alaska has 1770 teenage pregnancies a year (not much) and their teenage pregnancy dropped by 34% in 1992 - 2000.

The data on the website is dated but if the trend holds true then I could see a perfectly logical reason for cutting back funding.

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This is just a thought, but why can't parents explain sex education to their children?

The last I checked your son or daughter should be the responsibility of the parents. If your child can't learn to tie his shoes do you blame the school for this? If your child doesn't know to talk to strangers and something happens.. is this the fault of the school?

It is the parents job first and foremost to instill these things into their children. The problem is that parents look for the easy way out and let the school system teach the kids about sex.

I think the school should teach about STD's and perhaps the anatomy (but that's covered in a different class also).

Why are Americans fine with not being responsible for themselves and their families?

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Abstinence is effective as a practice, but abstinence-only sex education is not effective as a policy. If all you tell teenagers is "stop fucking," you haven't taught them anything. You said yourself that "people will still fuck and have kids even when they can't or don't want to take care of them." So how is preaching abstinence and not teaching anything else going to change that?

You may have recieved abstinence-only sex education yourself and not be aware of this, but there are actually a lot of contraceptives that are very effective at preventing pregnancy, and condoms are pretty effective against STDs. I've been fucking for over 20 years and have never had an unintended pregnancy or an STD, so "stop fucking" is not the only option.

I'm sure Palin told her daughter to "stop fucking," and now she's gonna be a baby-mama.

I agree that the fact that Palin's daughter is pregnant is not relevant to her veto of the teen mother funding, but it is ironic. And I think her pregnant daughter does show the failure of abstinence-only sex education.

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Exactly, I see abstinence only sex education as the same as the archaic ways that schools teach their so-called "drug education." Isn't the DARE method of telling kids all drugs are bad and they shouldn't do them, while comparing the dangers of marijuana to those of heroin, much less effective than educating kids about the different dangers of each drug and what to expect if faced with such drugs? We shouldn't just say don't fuck, we should educate them on the dangers and pleasures of sex, while making sure they are responsible so they don't get pregnant.

8182KSKUSH-- do you really think that simply telling kids not to fuck is the most effective strategy against teen pregnancies? Would a 16 year old kid think before having sex with his girlfriend..."Oh man, my health teacher told us not to fuck so we better not." No, he's gonna forget everything that health teacher says the second he walks out of that classroom if all they are doing is talking at them rather than with them. Abstinence only education is a failed policy.

And for the record I don't think her daughter being pregnant should have ANYTHING to do with this election, it should be a private matter. But the media just loves to stir up anything that will drive up ratings. The thing that bothers me about Palin in this situation isn't her pregnant daughter, its the fact that her daughter got pregnant while she was advocating abstinence only education and she still supports it. Maybe if they had better sex-ed her boyfriend would have wrapped his shit up.

Actually Parenting is the failed policy. Ultimately the consequences your child faces directly reflect the beliefs you've instilled into your child. Who ever said it was the school's job to teach children about sex? Don't you feel first and foremost such a sensitive matter should come from the parents?

I personally would never rely on public education if I had kids to teach them about sexual responsibility.

How do you know he wasn't wearing a condom, or that she wasn't taking some form of birth control (many teenage girls do as it can help regulate their periods and even sometimes control the severe cramping they get), or something else?

The fact is that you don't know and neither do I or the general public. You are making judgements and assumptions over things that you will never know. And people wonder why it's "guilty until proven innocent." it's because the general population are so damn judgemental when there is no reason to be. Our own judgements and biases have led to the "guilty until proven innocent.". It's no wonder so many people think this way.

As far as abstinence.... That is what Sarah Palin believes and despite what has happened to her daughter she still feels that is the most RESPONSIBLE form of birth control.

I admire her from not budging from her beliefs.. this is something you would never see a liberal do if they were caught in a tough situation. They would cave in just to save themselves. Look at Obama, he threw William Wright, Bill Ayers, Tony Rezko and a number of people under the bus just to save his own standings in the presidental election.

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This is one of the GOP's issues that I can't agree with. Fact is, you tell a teen NOT to do something you can bet that he or she will out of either spite or curiosity. If they want to promote "do not fuck", they had better promote oral sex as an alternative food group.

Have a good one!

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My problem with this is that the general population doesn't take responsibility for their own kids.

I think abstinence should be taught in school and other forms of birth control should be taught by the parent. We're all adults, we've had sex, we know how to prevent babies. Why do we need to invest tax dollars into a sex education class for something the parents can do themselves if they feel it is in their families best interest?

This is another example of people placing responsibility somewhere outside themselves.

I could care less if teens are having sex or abstaining but I don't think the government has a place to educate our children. If anything they should be sending parents to a sex education class to help instruct their children.

A teacher won't express the consequences and importance the same way a loving family member would. It also doesn't have the same impact coming from someone you have no relation with (teacher) as it does with someone you have a solid bond with (parent).

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While I do agree with the fact that parents should teach their kids the majority of their sex-education, the thing is many parents will not do this. There are a lot of parents out there who are either a) too naive to think that their kids might start having sex at age 16, or b) too embarrassed to teach their kids about contraceptives. Now I'm not saying parents should feel this way, but there are definitely a large portion of them who do. What would the negatives be from teaching contraceptive use in school? I think it should be taught to supplement whatever the parents have taught the kids, or in certain circumstances to fill the void that the parents have left by either their naiveté or embarrassment.

No one, but hey who ever said it was the school's job to teach kids about drugs? Sex, like drugs, is a sensitive subject and sometimes it is more effective for trained professional educators to provide knowledge and information.

I respectfully disagree. Just because a parent tells a teen to do something does NOT mean he or she will do it. In fact, oftentimes just the opposite happens; rebellious teens are notorious for doing the exact opposite thing as their mother and father told them to do.

Actually I think this is exactly backwards and should be the opposite. The topic of human sexuality, reproduction, and birth control (including, but not limited to, abstinence) are all valid clinical health issues that should be taught in school. Personal moral and religious beliefs are best taught at home or in the church.

I think the people advocating for abstinence-ONLY sex education are not doing it because they truly believe that abstinence is the BEST contraceptive and should be the only method taught because it is so effective. They advocate for it because they believe it is amoral for kids to be screwing. Let the schools teach the facts and let the parents teach the morality.

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