Saturday, October 14, 2006

Pregnant teenager scenario: more idiocy from the religious right

I've been travelling and I'm tired and pissed off. Whenever I'm in that frame of mind, I like to scroll through the conservative blogs in search of new assholishness to ridicule. Like shooting fish in a barrel, today's search was automatically rewarded by fucktardery on the same subject from 2 of my favourite religious right shreddy-brains, SUZANNE of "Big Blue Wave" and Dr. Roy of -- brace yourself for this unique and creative blog title -- "Dr. Roy's Thoughts". Like a set of keys jangled in front of a couple of exceptionally stupid and pious pit-bulls, SUZANNE and Dr. Roid are impressed with the original post from the conservative brain trust at "Say Anything" that cites the hypocrisy of US democrats on the Foley scandal.

Living up to its name, "Say Anything" insists US democrats are hypocrites for decrying the Foley scandal while at the same time voting against a proposed law to prevent pregnant teenagers from being assisted by teachers or guidance counsellors in getting an abortion without parental notification. SA posits that such a scenario could occur if a pregnant teenager was afraid her parents 'would be mad at her' because of her predicament. So here's the dichotomy: on one hand, there's 52-year-old Foley hitting on teenage pages, on the other, there's counsellors helping a teenager resolve a life-altering problem without incurring the wrath of her parents.

If you fail to see the relativity of these sitations, that's a good sign: it takes a special kind of stupidity to concur with this pretzel logic. It's too simple, but just for fun let's deconstruct "Say Anything's" argument. For one thing, Foley was a middle-aged man who was trying to get it on with underage kids. The guidance counsellors who help a girl get an abortion aren't trying to have sex with her, they're trying to help her solve a problem that resulted from having sex with someone else. For another thing -- oh, wait, that's it. Argument over. Take that, Straw Man.

What I found most telling about SA's argument was the admission that the scenario could happen because the girl might be afraid of her parents' anger (not to mention afraid of being forced to be an unwilling baby-making machine). I agree that parents should know about something this serious -- but only if they're willing to respect their kid's decision in the matter. A teenager shouldn't have to go through such a terrifying situation without support, preferably parental support, but when parents are unwilling to support their kid by respecting her decisions, what can she do? It speaks volumes about the relationships these people have with their kids; good thing teachers and guidance counsellors are there to pick up the slack when parental support fails.