Which just goes to show that reporters like to latch onto key phrases and ignore anything else a 'celebrity' might say to expound on the situation. Apparently Bristol Palin was interviewed about her pregnancy and her views on teenaged sex. She gave the view that teenagers should refrain from sex, but that abstinence is not realistic.
There are two things to be said about that. First, we can't simply accept that just because Sarah Palin's daughter said it, it must be the end of the story. Second, there is much to be said about "realistic expectations regarding abstinence." No, it is not realistic to expect that abstinence-only eduction will somehow keep teenagers from having sex, or that even those teenagers who want to abstain will never have pre-marital sex. The temptation is obviously present, and people will act on temptation. Premarital sex has been around practically since human beings first started having sex, no matter how strict laws have been against it.
On the other hand, this is not suddenly a blanket approval of promiscuity. Just because it is not realistic to assume that abstinence will happen does not mean that we have to put in safeguards to protect people from choosing to have sex. It does not mean that we shouldn't teach that abstinence is the best way to avoid pregnancy, STD's, and lives ruined from the callous treatment of the opposite sex that is so markedly present in our culture today. Rather, I find that it means that we shouldn't make the perfect the enemy of the good.
Really, the best thing of all would be teach people some theology of the body, and go from there.
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