the stupid, it burns!

[gsh]

Bristol Palin, daughter of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, went on "Good Morning America" to launch her new pastime as an ambassador for abstinence.

Anchor Christopher Cuomo pointed out that Palin's own personal history went against her abstinence-only message for teens. (Palin, 18, recently had a baby with former boyfriend Levi Johnston.) She became pregnant after she and Levi failed to use protection (something Johnston admitted on the "Tyra" show.)

Palin was less forthcoming on this issue than her ex. "Regardless of what I did personally, I just think that abstinence is the only way you can effectively, 100% foolproof way you can prevent pregnancy," she responded. Asked how she squared her own experiences with her new campaign, she added, "I'm not quite sure, I just want to go out there and promote abstinence and say, this is the safest choice. This is the choice that's going to prevent teen pregnancy and prevent a lot of heartache."

Look Briston, I realize you may never have had a course in statistics, but don't refer to something as being 100% foolproof *after* you have a kid due to playing sex games without using protection.

Comments

[tamarinne.livejournal.com]

"not having accidents is 100% sure way of not having accidents." Hee.

It's actually kind of interesting, if you think about it - any birth control method has two failure rates, but we only ever talk about one. There's the failure rate if you use it properly (which is the one we hear about), but then there's the failure to use it properly. Abstinence has a much better failure rate for the first, but a much worse failure rate for the second (it's much easier to put on a condom than it is to abstain.)

We should talk to melebeth about popularizing the second failure rate. :)

[gsh]

Unfortunately this topic makes my blood pressure rise, and I have many more fun things I'd want to talk to Melebeth about. :) But I agree it is important.

[melebeth]

*nod* I actually generally talk about both sorts of failure - but what you're getting at is a third one... failure to use at all.