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Then: Sylvie (from the film Les Diablesses next to one of the nuns when she enters the correction center for "lost girls", ca. 1950.
This is a tragic story. Just around Christmas time, Sarah Palin's daughter, Bristol, is expected to deliver her first child, whose pregnancy she was displaying at the Republican National Convention at Sarah Palin's Vice Presidential nomination. This will, without any doubt, be an illegitimate child.
Sarah Palin's interjection into the national and international scene was full of strange coincidences. She was the younger, plucky female to the tired and old McCain; Tina Fey became her near-double (how often does that happen!), playing gags of her throughout the election period; and now, her daughter is giving birth out-of-wedlock around the same time as the birth of Jesus.
If I were Palin, I would take these omens as signs to question her motives, her life and that of her family. There was a time when such young girls as Bristol had to give up their children to avoid a confused and confusing society. Now, almost every Hollywood starlet has a child with a "boyfriend", and some even make last-minute, after the birth dashes to get married - soon to be divorced again. Bristol even had some acknowledgment from one such Hollywood name, Jamie Lynn Spears, as a camaraderie of adolescent young mothers. And there is the terrible teen-pact of young adolescent girls getting pregnant as a group to help each other out. Young girls take example from what they say around them.
Sarah Palin obviously doesn't think this is a big problem. Sure, it derailed her political life somewhat, including many unfounded rumors centered around her own pregnancy of Trig, but she is after all a member of the Feminists for Life which has a college outreach program for pregnant students. Yes, the point is to make life as comfortable as possible for these unmarried college students expecting their illegitimate children.
I don't care what Palin's rationale is - to avoid abortion, to increase birth rates. Whatever. If something is done with the wrong methods, the outcome can only be wrong. There is no "means towards the end" rhetoric here. It is irresponsible and and dangerous to society.
If I were Sarah Palin, I would worry about her other two daughters, and what their future actually holds. There are many accounts that her absence from home (and her husband's, who works on oil fields for part of the year) led to frictions with her eldest daughter. Would that mean, God forbid, that Palin leave her political position and focus on her family? Why not? What is more important to her, a post at this point which can really be filled by another candidate, or her role as a mother which can only be fulfilled by her?