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America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a skank.

GREATEST ARTICLE TITLE EVER! these silly bitches need to watch the baby bloggers on nbc, lol.

Poor judgment is expected in MA. They elect Kennedy and Kerry, lean towards Obama.

The premature desire to have a child, particularly in ill-equipped, poor, very young girls--is something that has been studied at length and is believed to be related to and/or caused by a real or perceived lack of other life choices. A lot of these girls don't see beyond their little town, don't see college or a rewarding career, etc. The wingnuts don't want to talk about this. Interesting that the right, as usual, blames the girls alone, as if these fetuses were conceived through asexual reproduction (Incidentally, young, equally poorly equipped, low-income boys who want to become fathers have a sense of hopelessness and desperation not dissimilar to the girls they impregnate--they see children as a masculinity boost and status symbol.) Alas, countless sociological, economic, medical, etc. studies show that becoming premature parents puts everyone involved--teens, babies--at a real disadvantage economically, educationally, socially, health-wise, etc. Right wingers should put their money where their mouth is. Abstinence is an utter fantasy of the right, but programs designed to foster interests in teens, daycare so teens can finish school, job training programs, increases in incentives to attend college, etc are all good places to start! Oh, did I already mention? ABSTINENCE DOESN'T WORK!! READ THE STUDIES!! THOSE TEENS WHO DO CLAIM TO ABSTAIN AT SOME POINT DO GO ON TO HAVE SEX, AND THEY ARE LEAST LIKELY OF ALL SEXUALLY ACTIVE YOUNG PEOPLE TO USE BIRTH CONTROL. COMPREHENSIVE SEX EDUCATION WITHOUT APOLOGIES NOW, NATIONWIDE!!!!!!!!

My question re: all these teen pregnancies by choice: who's going to foot the bill? Leftists and feminists natter about 'choice' all day, but then scream for public assistance when the time comes to pay for those 'choices.' Who's going to pay for all of this? You and I, my friend!

The left's only answer to social problems is hand-holding, therapy, claims of victim status, and indentured servitude to government handouts. (Sounds almost like corporate welfare, doesn't it?) Well, here's a solution: these girls want to have babies by choice - LET THEM PAY FOR THEM!

Of course, any deviation from the standard liberal structuralism model, any desire to hold people personally responsible for their own behavior, makes a person a complete ogre. Sorry, I forgot. I'll remember to tow the ideological line next time.

I can't wait to see how pitilessly the state treats the fathers when it goes after them for child support, and how cruelly it treats them in terms of visitation rights. I bet double nickles on the dime no one here expresses an ounce of the same sympathy for the fathers that they expressed for the girls. Also, rumor has it that one of the fathers is a homeless man. If that's true, you can bet the DA will go after him for statutory rape. Of course, it was all his fault, right? He should have known better. (BTW - he should have.) As for the girl he had sex with, she's not capable of rational choice when it comes to sexual activity, right? But she's capable of rational choice when it comes to having a child? I await your logical contortions.

BTW - It's obvious the left is just as guilty of selective quoting as the right. The only thing different is the titles on your playbooks.

The rightwingers already blamed the Virginia Tech massacre on the Brady Bunch. The argument is that gun control won't stop such massacres from occurring (since the deranged will find access to weapons) but does stop the victims from shooting back and ending it.

wait a second... will this or won't this be a good first step in outbreeding the great dark Muslimomexifascist hordes?

Righteous comedy from Righteous Bubba in comment #1. Holy Shit.

Here's an idea for "change". Give fathers all reproductive and child custody rights with mothers having no say instead of what we have now, including whether or not the mother is allowed to visit her children, force mothers to finance the fathers lifestyle choices or go to prison as deadbeats, give federal taxpayer kickbacks (Title IV section 666) to states for getting mothers out of the house instead of fathers, then have Obama read a speech on Mother's Day about how single fathers are heroes and victims, and how it's all mothers fault for acting like little girls and not like "real mothers". Oh, and lastly, the media must be quick to label anybody who disagrees with his recipe for "change" as a racisexist.

The real problem isn’t the stereotypical female “teen-in-trouble". Actually, if US society actually cared about the welfare of children, it might start by removing the “implied” legal standard that children are the sole “property” of their biological mothers from conception to legal adulthood. To begin with, despite having access to over a dozen forms of birth control (men only have two) the “virtuous” gender unilaterally exercises its "reproductive rights" 1.4M (30% of children conceived) times annually (w/o considering the corresponding responsibilities) by aborting, committing infanticide, & outright abandoning their children for purely capricious & arbitrary reasons. Additionally, American women bring about 70% of divorce actions (the “No-Fault” Divorce legal movement was started by the National Association of Women Lawyers in 1960), have children out of wedlock at least 37% of the time, and are invariably “entitled” to subsidized housing, welfare, food stamps, child custody, child support, alimony, etc. At least 4% of all married women commit the most despite form of domestic abuse: Paternity fraud. Women are of course the biggest sexual/financial exploiters of multiple partners. Their near monopoly with respect to child custody results in the fact that women are twice as likely to commit child abuse & neglect. Then there’s the matter of abuse committed by non-biological parents/partners. It would seem, in the absence of evidence of abuse, that default shared custody would be in the best interest of the nation’s children. Unfortunately, in this current state of institutionalized misandry, when all things female are sacrosanct and beyond reproach, maintaining the consequence-free, responsibility-optional lifestyles of irresponsible women children trumps the interests of this nation’s children. They are their mother’s “property” after all. Isn’t gender-feminism wonderful?

The premature desire to have a child, particularly in ill-equipped, poor, very young girls--is something that has been studied at length and is believed to be related to and/or caused by a real or perceived lack of other life choices. A lot of these girls don't see beyond their little town, don't see college or a rewarding career, etc. The wingnuts don't want to talk about this.

Which reflects a feeling of dependence and helplessness the Left has been all too willing to cultivate in them. It's no wonder they see no way out or reason to even try.

Contrary to your assertion, "wingnuts" have been quite vociferous in their opposition to the cult of victimization the Left tries to inculcate in folks, the younger the better, so as to replenish your voting ranks.

David12345:

Just because your parents didn't love you as a child is no reason to blame everything on the Left. What a load of crap. I can picture it now: girlfriend left you-blame it on the Left; got fired at burger flipping joint-blame it on the Left; some higher being giving you the ability to type but not think-blame it on the Left!

If it isn't apparent to you that teen pregnancies is a HUMAN BEING thing, than I suggest you just shove your self-righteous head back up your butt and act like everything is all Right in the world.

I haven't seen an article or news source that pinpoints why these girls thought that raising their children together would be beneficial to said children; it sounds rather cult-like. The fact that one of the fathers is a 24-year old homeless casanova is also just appalling. (It does however, show that there is hope for blame-game simpletons like our friend David.) And having worked with teens (male and female) in urban and suburban settings, the "everyone wants to be loved" excuse is just that, an excuse. While some research has shown the need to feel unconditional love as an outcome of the pregnancy, it isn't a reason while most teens are getting pregnant.

Sadly, one of the reasons I hear most often in response to the question:"So, you guys were knocking boots, what's up with no protection?" is laziness. Protection was available, but due to the spur of the spur-of-the-momentness of teen sex, couples would rather roll the dice than bet on the pill or a condom. As to why they were having sex in the first place, and not working, volunteering, or involved in an after-school activity that could chew up some time? Boredom. Kids are bored, kids have sex.

Perhaps, since this story has garnered the kind of national attention that teen pregnancy usually lacks, and more of the spotlight will be devoted to this very troubling problem that affects all Americans.

By the by, David12345, since you speak for the Right (or as the last eight years have proven Right about nothing!): What type of plans are currently in place to aid in the adoption of unwanted children that are the result of pregnancies, accidently or otherwise? Clocks ticking...

Let me help you: the Right will bitch the loudest when it comes to Pro Life and that every birth counts; unfortunately when the child moves beyond birth, the Right runs away like the kid has the plague. The same types of social programs that are in place to teach teens about sex, and to provide for contraceptives should they be needed, are also the programs that help place children into the adoption process, and into the foster care system (which is in drastic need of a complete makeover itself).

As for replenishing voting ranks...you can probably return safely to Assholeville, where they obviously pile crap a lot higher than most places.

how quickly everyone has forgotten little sexpot jaime lynn spears!

Poor David,

I'm fairly certain that the more you continue to use the phrase "mainstreaming the fringe" the less and less it will make sense. It probably looks great scribbled all over the walls of your basement apartment at the homestead, but in reality in sounds like a talking point you ditto-heads are so good at thrusting upon society until people think it means something.

Poor David speaks of facts, and then presents a nice worn out group of "facts" from Arthur Brook's research on charity. I'm not really sure where you are going with the relationship between teen pregnancy and charity, but I'm sure in future posts you'll let us know by throwing some "facts" at the wall and seeing what sticks. (Again, another specialty of Republican truth twisting and fact bending.)

I don't recall mentioning anything about talking about what should be done with children that may not be unwanted once they are born (soft spot, there David?), only merely pointing out the cold, hard truth that the elephant riders of the world want nothing to do with these children.

Its amazingly predictable that Poor David would go right to the government charity card. How totally par for the course. That's the best you can do? All you can come up with is the cliche that citizens on the Left choose to wait for government to take action? And since you couldn't possibly, factually refute the lack of Rightist initiatives to aid children, such as those that will be born to 16+ teens in Massachusetts (and tens of thousands nationwide), you seemingly equate a government's responsibility to aid its people through a broken welfare system with donations made under the auspices of charity?

Let me lay this out there one more time: You thrown a red herring into the debate that's bigger than the fish Santiago tried to reel in throughout "The Old Man and the Sea?" Shit, that is lame. You have totally confused a government's responsibility to its people (the concept of the welfare state dates back to at least Rome, no matter how broken our system is) with the finski I'm dropping in the money basket at church on Sundays.

I overestimated your intelligence, or lack thereof. Do you work at Kinko's? You are great at copying and dropping down other people's ideas and "facts," yet you have none of your own. How very conservative of you.

Try to stick to the point of the commentary: why did sixteen girls choose to get pregnant and then decide to raise these children together? It is only after their story has come out, that we as a society can see their point of view and try to understand their thinking. Don't hide behind the pompousness and virtue of being religious, or charitable. (And even then, try and use the argument correctly.)

This country is currently facing a plethora of problems, ranging from economical to social, to educational, and so on. We need to look at what is going on, and figure out why it is taking place. It is far too easy to simply point at what appears to be an eight-year run by the worst --and that bears repeating-- WORST administration in our country's short history. Instead, we should try to look at solutions that can be addressed in the next two to six years. Realistic solutions.

Poor David: in case you didn't know --and judging by how unwillingly you are to try and see the big picture, you don't-- a solution is the answering or completing of a problem. Such as: The current initiatives offered by the welfare system are NOT solutions to teen pregnancy, but there are solutions on both sides of the political fence that must be looked at seriously in order to begin to change the social degradation that is affecting people of both red and blue states.

As one of the authors cited, I feel I need to clarify one point: I said that if these girls want public assistance, they should be sterilized UNTIL THE AGE OF 21. If you're taking MY money, dammit, then I want some assurance that it won't be merely the first in a long line of children I'll be put on the hook for.

And, while I muttered about being "dictator," I ended my piece about this being yet another reason why I should never be entrusted with REAL power -- a sentiment that the Voice apparently shares with me.

J.

Jay Tea
Main Page Editor
www.wizbangblog.com

David12345:

Nice ad hominem attacks. It's pretty obvious the left and its sub-groups haven't a leg to stand on in this argument. Go back to your playground. The rest of us have grown-up things to do.

sakara:

Actually, she'd live well off the government, not you. You'd be hounded for child support. If you were estranged from the mother, you'd probably also be denied visitation. And god help you if you lost your job and couldn't pay the child support for one or two months. They'd put you in jail for a year with rapists and murderers, and then when that year was up, they'd demand the months of child support from when you were in jail. Of course, you wouldn't have that money, because you were in jail during that time. So they'd put you back in jail, or maybe suspend your driver's license so that you couldn't drive to a job in the first place.

Then again, if you were a seventeen year old mother, you could do the following: have a child by 'choice.' Alienate the father, and then trot down to the welfare office so that you can get Big Momma Government to shell out the cash to support your 'choice.'

Isn't second and third wave feminism awesome? I especially love the "When things work out for us, we'll accept responsibility, when things don't, we'll shirk it off on everyone else" part.

And no, BTW, I'm not a spurned husband or an estranged father. I'm just someone who was raised to think that we're all responsible for our own decisions.

Great article, that rachel chick is a little loony. Maybe she's jealous the teens are getting some and she can't snare a hair. But seriously, those girls kind of messed up their life, if only they would have had "the baby borrowers" for them to watch.

I can't believe this. This isn't about RIGHT VS. LEFT! It's about the fact that it's a DUMBASS IDEA FOR TEENAGERS TO HAVE KIDS!!! Always has, always will be.

If you had a teenager, and she approached you and said, "Mom, I want to have a kid," your answer would be, "Oh my god, that's a dumbass idea!!" It doesn't matter if you're a hard right-winger or as left as can be. NO ONE in their right mind wants their teenage daughter or son to be a parent!! So why is everyone arguing about the freakin' obvious?

Some people here mentioned the movie Juno. I watched that movie very closely. I specifically remember the parts where her parents called her an irresponsible dumbass. Do you know why they called her that? Because she was an irresponsible dumbass!!

The answer is to keep teenagers from having kids. Not by some draconian measures. Not by holding their hands and mollycoddling them and offering them therapy. Not by implementing yet another liberal pseudo-fix or moronic conservative abstinence program - but by teaching them that they are responsible for their actions!

Here's an idea. Provide welfare for one child born out of wedlock. That's the cutoff. Any more kids born out of wedlock, and you're on your own. You'd see the illegitimate birth-rate cut in half in less than two years. No money, no kiddies! As far as sex education in schools, that should take two days. One day describing how sex and pregnancy works, the next day spent on STD's. Two full days, cancel all other classes. That's all you need. Then put a big ass bowl of condoms in every nurse's office, one dollar a piece. Let's start teaching these kids that 'aint nothing free in this world.

"Also, the admission isn't 'Mom, I want to have a kid,' that would be an easy response. The discussion is more like "Mom, I'm [or she's] pregnant." Then what do you do?"

The point is not to get there in the first place. But I don't know, what's your answer? Do you have any other answer besides, "Yeah, so what do you do when it does happen?" That's not an answer or a solution. I get that all the time. All I hear is excuses and pandering from liberals, and draconian measures from conservatives. One side wants to create a socialist utopia, the other wants re-build America into a bad version of Logan's Run.

Tell you what; go ahead and have your illegitimate kids. Then get a job and support them yourselves. That's the America I was raised in.

If we could properly fund abstinence only education in this country, we could tell every teen "Just say no to sex." Look how well that worked in the war on drugs!

Giving birth control to teenagers isn't giving them permission, you dopes. It's acknowledging reality. Telling teenagers not to fuck is like telling clouds not to rain.

I am a 60 year old fan of the Fathers & Families Blog but have never voted for a Republican presidential candidate (or anyone politically to the right of Republicans).

Characterizing Fathers & Families as a right wing blog is inexcusable ignorance at best.

I'm *from this town* ... I think that the local perspective has been missed in all the rush to make a salacious story of it.

http://randazza.wordpress.com/2008/06/25/gloucester-and-its-pregnancy-pact-a-natives-perspective/

First wave feminists blamed all women's problems on men.

Second Wave feminist blamed all the World's problems on men.

Third wave feminists blame all men's problems on men.

Is anyone starting to see a pattern here?

"(As the Time story is datelined June 18, Rudov seemed to credit Obama with the ability to time-travel; so, when Rudov also asked, "Having babies makes a girl a woman, right Senator Obama?" he may have been referring to an Obama speech that hasn't been written yet, or exists in an alternate universe.)"

Nice try Roy. You should actually read what Marc Rudov wrote. He was spot-on.

Like all left wing lunatics you cannot debate on the issues intelligently-you can only slime the messenger in an attempt to slime the message.

That left wing trick has lost all effectivenes except for those sharing your kool-aid.

Marc Rudov rocks!!!