Monday, September 8, 2008
Should Bristol Palin be celebrated (or stigmatized)?
Today's local paper carried a story about the impact of the Bristol Palin media coverage on other teenage mothers. As with the coverage of Jamie Lynn Spears, this cultural phenomenon could send questionable signals on the wisdom of teenage pregnancy and motherhood to an audience whose behavior is especially susceptible to being shaped by media. Palin and Spears have the economic and family resources to support themselves and their babies; many (most?) teenagers who become pregnant do not. The article notes:
Today, fewer than 1 percent of babies born to never-married U.S. women, including teens, are placed for adoption, according to the CDC. That's a sea change from the 1950s to early 1970s, when most pregnant girls mysteriously disappeared to give birth at homes for unwed mothers, their babies adopted out in closed adoptions.
I don't consider the birth of a child ever to be a "punishment," but I think it's beyond dispute that teenage motherhood is, in most cases, far from ideal for the mother's or the child's development. So here's my question: Is the loss of stigma attached to teenage pregnancy an entirely positive development? If not, are there ways that cultural norms (and law?) can stigmatize teenage sex without stigmatizing the results of sex -- i.e., discourage teenage sex while supporting and encouraging pregnant teenagers' decisions to give birth? And if cultural norms suggest that the stigmatization of teenage sex is an unrealistic goal, should Catholic legal theorists oppose more narrowly focused efforts to stigmatize unprotected teenage sex? When it comes to teenage mothers, should we be making more of a concerted effort to encourage adoption, not just instead of abortion, but also instead of keeping the baby? Does social stigma play a potentially valuable role in any of this?
https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2008/09/should-bristol.html