Obama wouldn’t want his daughters ‘punished with a baby’

April 1, 2008

Over the weekend, hosting a town-hall meeting in Johnstown, Pa., Barack Obama was asked about how his administration would address HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases among young girls. Obama’s answer didn’t strike me as especially controversial, but the right seems pretty worked up about it.

“When it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include — which should include abstinence education and teaching the children — teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual. But it should also include — it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I’ve got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t want them punished with an STD at the age of 16. You know, so it doesn’t make sense to not give them information.”

My radar must be a little off, because I didn’t see the conservative outrage coming. David Brody, a correspondent for crazed TV preacher Pat Robertson’s show, wrote, “‘Punished with a baby?‘ That just doesn’t sound right. Why use the word ‘punished’? I would think that word would be alarming to people and possibly offensive to those who have had babies out of wedlock.”

Brody wasn’t alone. Sean Hannity pounced on this, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell ran a misleading report on the quote, and far-right bloggers were in predictably high dudgeon. One went so far as to argue, “I goess [sic] we could call these his ‘terminating the family’ values… Now He’s [sic] informed his chldren [sic] via the media that daddy will drive them to Planned Parenthood if they get knocked up. Once again, Barack Obama is making me question not just his ability to lead this nation, but even his ability to be a marginally-responsible father.”

Was the off-the-cuff comment really that controversial?

Tommy Vietor, an Obama campaign spokesperson, issued a follow-up statement to reporters who asked about the right’s reaction to the remarks.

“What Sen. Obama said and what he believes is clear — children are ‘miracles,’ but we have a problem when so many children are having children,” Vietor said. “As Sen. Obama said on Saturday — and on many other occasions — parents have a responsibility to teach their children about values and morals to help make sure they are not treating sex casually. And while he understands the passions on both sides of this difficult issue, Sen. Obama believes we can all agree that we should be taking steps to reduce the number of teen pregnancies and abortions in this country.”

Does anyone seriously believe that Obama thinks of parenthood as “punishment”? And if not, then what’s the point of the conservative fuss? That he’s pro-choice, but committed to reducing the number of abortions? I think we knew that.

Obama believes teenagers should be given as much accurate information as possible so they can make the right choices. If a teenage girl makes a mistake, forcing her to accept an unwanted pregnancy is a punishment of sorts, isn’t it?

I’m missing my far-right talking-points decoder ring, but this just doesn’t sound especially “alarming” to me.

The ironic thing, to me, is that the quote, in context, is actually kind of pro-life (at the least, decidedly not pro-choice). Remember, he’s not talking about abortion here, he’s talking about abstinence-only education, basically arguing “I want my kids to know about condoms in case they make a mistake and have sex. I don’t want them to not know about condoms and then have to have a baby.”

“Punished with a baby” is obviously poor phrasing, but I’m not sure why implying that teenage sex is a “mistake” and not even conceding abortion to be an option (he doesn’t say anything about having to “make a difficult choice” or anything) would be objectionable to anyone, certainly not anti-abortion groups.

  • Don’t bother trying to understand the reasons for their outrage, because they have none. They’re simply looking for an excuse to get up-in-arms about Obama and this was the most convenient one today. If it hadn’t been this, they would’ve seized on Obama’s bowling alley visit and complained that he now favored gutter politics.

    The reason for their outrage is that they’re about to be made irrelevant and they know it. That’s why they’re overreacting so much, that’s why they’re in a heightened state of whining and perpetual panic. Hell, you can see it in the pathetic trolls posting here about Wright or Rezko, long after these issues have been exhausted and found insufficiently damaging to Obama.

    The right-wing nuts know they can’t win on a debate on issues or ideas, so they’re frantically looking to sling mud.

    And I, for one, find their increasing panic and their flopsweat paranoia to be absolutely hysterical.

  • The right can’t have it both ways. They can’t decry having babies out of wedlock a sin, but also decry Obama calling the same thing a punishment. Does not compute.

  • You don’t need a decoder ring – all you need is a lot of experience at lopping off context and applying a lot of either-or thinking and you too can grow rhetorical mountains out of molehills. As a commenter on (I think) Balloon Juice said yesterday, young women in high school who get pregnant and choose to keep the babies definitely feel “punished” by the permanent loss of normal high school life. And in other contexts “social conservatives” love to apply this logic to kids who don’t tow the “abstinence only” line and never got a proper chance to learn about birth control methods. If these schmucks want to pick a fight on this one, we can obliterate them.

  • You know, Obama’s style of repeating phrases is much more effective with “Yes we can.” and “Not this time” than it is with “you know.”

  • Scratch a wingnut and you’ll quickly find the neanderthal underneath.

    To them, women who don’t save it for their husbands are sluts, and should be forced to deal with their bastard offspring as punishment to keep all the others in line. A woman’s sexuality is the exclusive property of men: her father’s up till she marries, and her husband’s after that. Harlots who actually enjoy sex are evil and should be vilified. If they get an STD (preferably fatal), so much the better.

    Anything to do with sex brings forth the fundamentalist id, and it isn’t a pretty thing.

  • If a teenage girl makes a mistake, forcing her to accept an unwanted pregnancy is a punishment of sorts, isn’t it?

    Of course it is (and if it results in poverty or social disdain so much the better). Obama’s sin was in saying it. Because that’s exactly how some people want to control women–through punishment. He cut through the “family values” bullshit.

  • Why the surprise? Anything that Obama says is automatically controversial on the Right and from Hillary supporters. “Punished with a baby” is exactly what it would be for a 16 yr. old girl. Is the Right and the Obama haters really trying to say that a 16 yr old girl having a child is a good thing or somehow not encumbering to that child and her baby (or how about society when we are picking up the assistance tab)? What are the chances of a good, healthy life?

  • Note to WingNuttia’s knuckledragging denizens—thanks. I needed a good laugh. It has got to be a new pinnacle in comedy when these people try to put a roadblock between their definition of out-of-wedlock conception—“sinful”—and God’s own definition of God’s answer to sin—“punishment.” Or maybe it’s okay to ignore the literal meaning of the OT if you’re a bible-thumper who interprets the OT in a literal manner. What is it now—IOKIYAF?*

    I guess we can start calling these self-righteous swine “phony christians” now—can’t we?

    *It’s okay if you’re a fundie….

  • I’m sure that Ann Coulter’s plan would make Obama unelectable. Just take the vote away from women and voila, he’s toast.

    If men could get pregnant abortion would be a right enshrined in the constitution.

  • i think what wingnuttia is saying is that in a perfect world, all 16-year-olds would be blessed with babies.

  • “It has struck me that people who aren’t getting enough sex are always very fascinated by it, even if the fascination takes the form of them being very very cross that other people are getting some.”
    — John Cleese

    I’m sure the fundie moralists believe that every Saturday night they are giving their wives the best 45 seconds of their week.

  • They’re just pissed because he’s identified, correctly, that the anti-sex movement really is about punishing “sluts” for having sex. They’re scared because he’s taking the framing of the issue away from them, and good on him for it, even if his phrasing was unpolished.

  • Let’s check the WingNuts favourite book shall we?

    Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Gen. 3:16

  • Children having children isn’t just a punishment for the woman but for the child and for society. People (and not just young people) who are ill prepared to raise a child due to money (ya know, food and shelter and all that irrelevant stuff), emotional ability or what have you affects many lives, not just that woman.

    Women are vilified yet education as to how to handle those raging hormones is frowned upon. Guys will be guys, but women! We should be chaste and only have hormones for our husbands…and only when they want it (no, ALWAYS when they want it). Total servitude. Chattel – you belong to daddy before you belong to your husband.

    Women who have children young often remain in the poorest demographic in our country throughout their life. Often, the children fare no better.

    And once that child is born? The right says fuck ’em. Welfare? That’s for corporations, not for food or healthcare. Care for that fetus as if it is gold but once it’s born, sorry Charlie, you’re on your own.

    I think Obama’s words were poorly chosen, but the meaning is one the right doesn’t believe in. Save a fetus, starve a child. THAT is what the right believes in.

  • Maybe someone can track down examples of the religious right praising teenage girls for getting pregnant? Wow, she gets to experience motherhood! There must be great examples out there right?

  • Look, if they don’t take things Obama says out of context and exaggerate them to look like a monster, then they have no choice to but to defend McCain’s electability based on his “merits.” Were I in the Republican party (and didn’t kill myself out of shame) and was faced with these options, it’s what I’d do, too. I thank my maker, whoever/whatever He/She/It is, that I have free will and can choose not to associate myself with those dillholes, and am hoping for much of the rest of the nation to finally play catchup.

  • It was a poorly phrased statement, much like “I voted for the war before I voted against it” was a poorly phrased statement. It’s easy enough to debunk but it unnecessarily gives ammo to the other side.

  • As Litterbox touched on above, having to bear and raise a child when you are not yet out of your teens most certainly is a punishment, and it was right for Obama to call it a punishment, because it isn’t shared. Teenage girls are just as interested in sex as are teenage boys, but teenage boys seldom if ever suffer the consequences of carelessness. The right claims to be all about families and loving values, and maybe things have gotten to the point that they believe the arrival of every child in America is a joyous event, attended by both mother and father and inspiring the creation of a support system that will nurture the child to adulthood. In by far the majority of cases that involve women under 20, it’s not like that at all, and being pregnant with an unexpected (and perhaps unwanted) child is the great equalizer; although it tends to press down harder on minorities, white middle-class girls are by no means immune.

    If you saw your plans for your life come to an abrupt and lengthy paralysis, while the lives of those around you went on – including the life of the one who shared in the pleasure but declined to participate in the grind – would you view it as a punishment? I think you might.

  • Oh, and MsJoanne had a great post at #16, we are certainly in agreement, I just didn’t see it in time and probably amplified the same points.

  • Sometimes I wonder if a few too many right wingers weren’t punished with a sixteen year old mother.

  • I will NEVER understand the mindset of people who essentially WANT their children to be IGNORANT of the realities of biology. Properly explained, sex education does not increase sex among teens. In fact, a teen who understands that sex can lead to desease and/or pregnancy may, in fact, choose to wait a while. Further, IF a teen does decide to have sex, at least an educated one is more likely to take precautions.

    All that being said, Obama’s choice of words was poor. That the wingnuts pounced on “I don’t want them punished with a baby” is, sadly, predictable.

  • “…[T]hat word would be alarming to people and possibly offensive to those who have had babies out of wedlock.”

    But presumably believing that they will face eternal damnation in a lake of fire would be evidence of a loving god.

  • “‘Punished with a baby?‘ That just doesn’t sound right. Why use the word ‘punished’? I would think that word would be alarming to people and possibly offensive to those who have had babies out of wedlock.”

    Since when is CBN worried about offending the sensibilities of fornicators & their bastard offspring?

  • “If a teenage girl makes a mistake, forcing her to accept an unwanted pregnancy is a punishment of sorts, isn’t it?”

    I don’t think Obama’s statement is about “forcing” a young lady to accept an unwanted pregnancy. It’s about the the consequence being the unwanted pregnancy itself. He obviously and simply misspoke — something we all do everyday. When somebody calls us on it, we simply say, “c’mon…you know what I mean”.

    The larger issue here is the double standard imposed by the traditional media (e.g. Andrea Mitchell…one of the worst “journalists” of all time). When the right misspeaks, the traditional media essentially ignores it (except for comedy fodder), as they should. When the left misspeaks, the words are taken as as deep insight into the person’s soul. Hell, John Kerry essentially forfeited his right to run for President again when he flubbed a joke. This shit is out of control.

  • Chris is right. This isn’t about the right wing. We know what to expect from those idiots. It’s about the traditional media. They’re letting us down big time, and they’re doing it on airwaves that belong to the public (that’s you and me).

    We have to find a way to take the airwaves back. They’ve been turned over to corporate hacks and, as a result, we’re all suffering for it.

    Canada is reputed to have a decent news media. If so, I wonder if they have policies we can consider and adopt to take our airwaves back.

  • He is much more of a feminist than I previously thought.
    I can vote for him without holding my nose now.

  • He muffed.

    It’s actually pretty close to right wing sentiment.
    Unplanned pregnancies should be forced on teen moms regardless of desire because they “did the deed”.

    “They should have thought of that before they said ‘Yes.” kind of thing.

    My eyes rolled a little when his PR guy calls babies “miracles’ too.
    Anything else that happened about 100,000 times a day would never be considered a miracle. It feeds into the link between God and biology that conflicts directly with our first amendment rights.

    Obama would do well to personalize such comments so as to make the line between church and state more stark.

  • Maybe he could follow up with “I want them blessed with a baby when the time is right, because a baby should feel rewarding, not punishing.” Or maybe he should say nothing. It’s like digging a hole with these spinmasters.

  • Parenthood is punishment if you’re a 15 year old girl. Even if you have the full support of your family, which most pregnant 15 year olds don’t have. Patenthood is punishment if you’re a 16 year old boy, whose employment prospects have just dropped to competing with illegal immigrants for a job at the local carwash – assuming you will step up and take the responsibility for the pregnancy.

    That the Right can’t understand that is amazing – nothing has changed with these people since the days their forbears were arresting Margaret Sanger.

  • Just wait until Hillary says that she never, ever, considered Chelsea “a punishment”.

  • Just wait until Hillary says that she never, ever, considered Chelsea “a punishment”.

    And don’t think she won’t say it. She will.

    She won’t have any problem pretending that her experience at age 32, accompanied by a husband and girded by an advanced degree, job skills, economic security and houseful of servants, is directly comparable to that of some scared teenager who hasn’t finished high school. And the really sad thing is that up until the moment that Obama said this, I’m sure that Clinton had every bit of sympathy in the world for pregnant teenagers.

  • Obama is a tricky one. Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether the wingnuts are pouncing on a slip-up or falling into a trap.

    I’m thinking “trap” with this one. Genuine conservatives react one way, wingnuts another, and the wedge between them gets a tiny bit bigger.

  • Genuine conservatives react one way, wingnuts another, and the wedge between them gets a tiny bit bigger.

    I think that’s about right. The only people freaking out about this are the ones who would never in a million years vote for any Democrat. It takes a dedicated freak to pretend even for political reasons that a 15-year-old having a baby is a good thing. They ain’t votin’ our ticket under any circs.

  • The other side the right wing evil doer needs to get a grip on what life is all about. If everything was done perfect from their hands, why and please tell me why, are we sooooooo-knee deep up a bulls behind in debt? How can the Republicans even breathe condemnation on a bugs poop? If the Republicans would realize the glass house that they reside in, is not shattered proof, then maybe some decent brainpower would come from the party.

    Bush, a Representative of the Republican Party is simply disgraceful on any level. How can a dog bark without sound? I am tickled pink on this one.

  • I think most mothers would completely agree with Obama ….IF they hear the full context.

    Granted the wording was a tad awkward…but I certainly agree that a pregnancy or an std at 16 years of age is a terrible punishment for ignorance… and a powerful reason for sex education prior to that point. Which is what he was talking about. double duh

  • Well hell, this is probably just my radical feminism coming out, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that phrasing. Anti-choicers are constantly saying that women should “accept responsibility” and “face the consequences” of sex, as they work to rid the country of contraception and sex education.

    Obama’s phrasing — that he doesn’t want his daughters punished with a baby or STDs — is exactly right because it doesn’t paint sexually active girls as contemptible harlots who deserve to suffer. Of course anti-choicers don’t like it, because it highlights the fact that they want to inflict a lifetime of punishment on girls who have sex.

  • Awhile back my cousin at 15 became pregnant. Horror upon horror, it wasn’t just a pregnancy, it would be from her secret African American boyfriend. They punished her alright. They made her carry the child through pregnancy and then put it up for adoption.

    They wonder now why at 42, she’s never moved away from home. She wonders where her son is.

    On the flip-side, I knew another woman who was in one of “those” churches fanatically preaching saving babies. She was 52 and was pressured into adopting a child of a child crack addict. The kid was out of control. And my friend, well she went on anti-depressants.

    It plainly is punishment especially in these terms and I suspect there are many girls, daughters of religious kooks, who have been punished in much the same way and will forever live in the shame of one innocent act. What angers me most is that those pushing this crap are usually men.

    If the conversation has to be started this way, then let the games begin. This is one war I would be willing to fight to the end.

  • When his opponents see the jump he gets with women voters from this brutally honest phrasing, they will shut up quickly. Remember Obama’s greatest campaign skill as demonstrated in his ‘race’ speech is his ability and willingness to speak to us as adults. Childish ranting may finally become insufficient to bring down a candidate.

  • I was just having a conversation the other day with another mother – we were both married and in our 30s when we had our children – how there are days when you realize that you have signed on to the most relentless job of your life upon giving birth. We both discussed those moments when you wish you had your life to yourself again. This is in the context of two loving mothers who adore their children and happy to be mothers and have the social support they need and made their decisions in full maturity and wouldn’t change them for anything.

    So, if you’re a 16 year old girl who didn’t have the wisdom of maturity and/or the knowledge from education to make a smart choice about how to manage the emotional and hormonal complexity of adolescence and ended up bringing a child into the world, where you are scorned for letting us all know that you’ve been sexually active by becoming pregnant and treated with disdain because you’re a teen-aged mother and seeing very few paths to financial security as you don’t have the education to get a job that will lead to career advancement and don’t have the funds to put your child in day care while you finish your education – that baby, that you probably love with all your heart, may certainly feel like a life sentence.

    And everyone knows it. Why else bother with abstinence programs? So, when all these “abstinence only” disdainfully judgmental people want to provide a family support network and financial and educational security to teen-aged mothers, I’ll might start to give them a modicum of respect for their different perspective on how to address unwanted pregnancies. Even then, an unwanted pregnancy, especially one that is born our of ignorance and immaturity, will always be a form of punishment.

  • Obama missed an opportunity to explain that abstinence-only sex education doesn’t work. He missed the chance to say that everyone is on the same page when it comes to preventing teen sex and STDs.

    He won’t get any kind of jump with women voters when he cannot discuss issues like this fluently. The phrase “punishing a woman with a baby” makes no sense — it reflects a judgmentalism about sex every bit as noxious as that held by right wingers. You don’t talk about punishment in the context of biological processes unless you think sexual behavior should be judged. Apparently Obama thinks behavior deserves judging, something he shares with the religious right. He just disagrees about what the punishment should be. That is not a position many women will rally behind, especially those who feel that what they do with their bodies is their business and that what happens as a result is a health issue, not a moral issue.

    Steve — you are having trouble anticipating responses to Obama’s statements because you have joined the bandwagon.

  • Obama could have said “inconvenienced” with a baby, or “have their lives derailed by a baby” or “education delayed” by a baby or perhaps “health compromised” by a baby, or any number of phrases that do not have the connotation of crime and punishment. Obama was judgmental because he is a religious, judgmental man with respect to sex. I don’t see any difference between his statement and that of the conservatives except that conservatives would forbid abortion and compel pregnancy while Obama might give his daughters a tongue lashing or shame them or tell them how stupid they were while perhaps exploring other options. Neither approach is particularly enlightened, in my opinion. And it gives me the willies when I hear a man speak so authoritatively about women’s sexual behavior and what they should do about it. Just because a man is a father doesn’t give him ownership of his daughter’s bodies. That they would automatically be considered “punished” by pregnancy is pretty creepy. Hasn’t he seen Juno?

  • The phrase “punishing a woman with a baby” makes no sense… -Mary

    How does it not make sense when the context is a teenage girl? I would think that someone who was a teenager in Chicago in the 1930s would understand this.

  • Obama could have said “inconvenienced” with a baby, or “have their lives derailed by a baby” or “education delayed” by a baby or perhaps “health compromised” by a baby, or any number of phrases that do not have the connotation of crime and punishment. -Mary

    It seems you have absolutely no understanding of what happens to most teenage moms. For someone so concerned with womens’ rights, I figured you’d have at least a rudimentary grasp of this issue.

    If they were ‘inconvenienced’ or ‘derailed’ or ‘delayed’ then that is what Obama would’ve said. But they majority of them aren’t any of those things. The words you have chosen as acceptable (and frankly, had he used any of those, you’d still be as incoherently furious with him), in no way capture the scope of what happens for most teenage mothers.

    You make it sound as if they just go on with schooling or careers when the ‘inconvenience’ of a child passes. I find that insulting because you’re glossing over a serious situation. It well deserves the gravitas Obama afforded it.

    Hasn’t he seen Juno? -Mary

    Just like Hillary, you’re resorting to fiction to support your case? Well, Juno isn’t real. I don’t you have the foggiest clue what unwanted teenage pregnancy does to a family in the real world, but mostly because you haven’t lived in the real world since at least the 30s.

  • I’m content to wait to see what the reaction to this will be. I feel fairly confident that the response will be quite positive from women who aren’t 1) religious nuts who believe that anything other than abstinence is grounds for the “punishment” and “facing the consequences” of sex, or 2) so far gone into Obama hatred and Hillary worship (which is really, of course, about Mary’s own ego and issues with self, and has little to do with Hillary) that they’ve lost all sense of how normal women respond to these things.

  • I’m glad somebody brought up Juno. I enjoyed the humor, the acting and the direction, and i realize it was supposed to be a modern fairy tale, but I was appalled throughout at its complete failure to address any of the anguish, depression, anger and, most importantly, abject terror that go along with a 16-year-old’s unplanned pregnancy.

    That Mary would cite it approvingly as reality–oh, yeah, teenage pregnancies can be fun! and full of bon mots! and opportunities for glibness!–is simply more evidence of her disconnect from rationality. Truly, she is a microcosm of the Clinton campaign’s willingness to say anything, heedless of personal dignity, in a fruitless attempt to gain a toehold.

  • Rush and Hannity were both all over this. Rush was particularly stupid by pointing out that a baby isn’t a punishment, it’s a consequence. Um… of course, punishment is a consequence. In the middle of that he sort of paused as if he realized what a stupid statement he’d made. Almost like a moment of self awareness. Then he plunged on. Hannity was just his usual hateful self.

  • lol, the right wing is getting desperate, they threw the whole house at him witht he Wright thing and it didn’t stop him, now all they have is a few crumbled bricks

  • Nobody should be surprised about the outrage at the comment…this is the election season after all (just like McCain’s 150 year war in Iraq, we have Obama’s punished with a child…)

    The larger issue is the difference in opinion on issues like abortion. The fact that we even have the discussion is a sad commentary (for me). There is no such thing as “pro-choice”. Anyone who claims otherwise has bought into a fabricated liberal moral dilemma. Search yourself…the only “Choice” made is to end a life. Call it Pro-Abortion, pro-baby-killing, or whatever. It doesn’t matter what reason or justification is presented….we don’t accept that for other issues, why does abortion get a pass????

  • JML : Just like “pro-life” is anti-choice aka Anti-freedom aka anti-American..

  • Above, MsJoanne closes her comment with the Republican Mantra of “Save a fetus, starve a child”. I’d not heard that before, but it is totally accurate! I’m a Virginian, which is a strong conservative state. I found myself pregnant at 21, after a life of abstinence and honoring my virginity. Oh well, I fucked up and decided I had to deal with it. So I found myself pregnant and alone, wanting to “make it”, but unable to get any kind of government help b/c I supposedly made too much money. I wasn’t looking for a handout, but WIC is advertised so heavily and the help would have been appreciated. The Repubs didn’t want me to kill my baby, but they didn’t want to help me out either. Again I say that I wasn’t looking for a handout b/c of laziness or whatever. There’s absolutely NOTHING wrong with hard-working people who need TEMPORARY assistance to keep them on an emotionally and financially healthy track.

    My son can be a holy terror, but I can’t even imagine my life without him anymore. Wait, that’s not ture. I CAN imagine my life without him, but I DON’T want to be without him.

    P.S. My son’s name is Tobias, which is Hebrew for “the Lord is good”.

  • David Brody: “Why use the word ‘punished’? I would think that word would be alarming to people and possibly offensive to those who have had babies out of wedlock.”

    Is it just me or does that last sentence sound almost like Brody believes that having a baby out of wedlock isn’t necessarily a bad thing (which would be a pretty bizarre belief to have for someone working for Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network)?

  • Mostly the wingnuts like the way it sounds– Glenn Beck today was playing it over and over, with an extra repeat on “baby.” This also kickstarted their newfound obsession with Obama’s pro-choice politics. They really haven’t talked about that yet, now is as good a time as any to start calling him a babykiller and segue into what a pinko faggot they think he is.

    This primary news vacuum is giving me a headache.

    Mary– you took one very long gulp of the kool-aide to come up with that argument. You somehow took the whole thing to mean that Obama is anti-sex and thinks of himself as owning his daughter’s bodies?!?

  • Here is the first comment appearing on the website Feministe — and I didn’t make the comment:

    “I know the right wing coerced pregnancy set is latching onto this with an “Obama sees precious, precious babies as punishment” meme.
    But I’m personally kind of disturbed by his readiness with the notion of teen pregnancy and STDs as punishment for failing to exercise “moral values.” Am I alone on that?”

    I do agree with it. But, my point is that other feminists reacted to his remark as I did.

  • They are grasping at straws. It takes hardly a barin cell to know it is self punishment to toss away so many opportunities at 16 with a child. That would be self punishment. Hello!

  • Life begins at conception. Life is precious even if a child or woman has sex outside of marraige. The sex before marriage is wrong but the baby is not a punishment. All life is precious and should be respected and saved. Many are waiting to adopt if the mom chooses not to take the baby to her home- if she has one.

  • If we do not value human life, and I agree that means life after birth — then we don’t have a democracy. This is why Obama’s comments, among other stances that he has taken on unborn babies and disabled people, concern me.

    Just so you know that I take human life seriously, I believe that this includes doing away with the death penalty (even in the Bible, the death penalty meant a fair, extensive trial and was rigid to the point of requiring up to three human eye witnesses that were not family members — not to mention the fact that Moses murdered with many more than three eye witnesses, David was guilty of murder AND Jesus kept the stoning of a woman caught in adultry from happening). This also means protecting the disabled, unborn children and not allowing human torture.

    Democracy is based on the belief that life has value — all life.

    While I definitely agree that having a child at 16 seems unimaginably difficult and in the best circumstances would result in an adoption, I am not sure this is what Obama meant in his quote. It almost sounds like he is saying any pregnancy that is not “planned”, at any age, in any situation, is a punishment. (In real life, even in marriage, most children are not planned. Just think of how many women want to have children and cannot, even while spending thousands on fertility drugs and other fertility methods. Or, ask how many women got pregnant while married because their birth control failed. Does this make their children a punishment?) Remember, even from a purely unsentimental viewpoint, children are needed to maintain future generations. Even if we become a socialist country, we need the future generation to pay taxes to care for us in our old age.

    It is this combined with Obama’s belief that if a baby survives an abortion that the child should be killed, that makes me think he supports infaticide. This is discouraging because I believe that democarcy is based on valuing human life. If we don’t value human life then it doesn’t matter what our economy or our political status in the world is — without valuing human life we no longer have a democracy.

    While Obama should not be judged on this statement alone, his views on human life specifically in the areas of the disabled and child infanticide (he also supports partial birth abortion) are disturbing. I personally don’t understand partial birth abortion because when my friends’ babies life was endangered by her pregnancy when she was exposed to chicken pox and had never had it before (she had a very rare situation where her baby’s heart was enlarging), she gave birth at 20 weeks and the baby died naturally. There was no reason todismember or kill her baby.

    My concerns about any candidate are directly concerning the issue of valuing human life. I have read enough about China and their disregard for human life (just look at the treatment of the Tibetan monks) for me to believe that this is the number one thing worth defending. Obama’s comment brought to the surface many things that concern me about his stance on human life. That doesn’t mean that there is any candidate that meets the high standard of valuing human life, it just means that I will weigh him in based on his comments.

  • You leftwing, trans-whatever-loving, ungrateful, baby-killing, unpatriotic, self-absorbed, God-hating, ingrates are so blinded by the devil that you don’t even realize it. Satan is just teasing you and playing with you like puppets. From out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Obama is running out of shallow one-liners that all you left-wing idiots fall head over heels for. Soon he will have to deal with real issues and it will be revealed that he has no plan at all………..he sold his soul to the devil long ago. Do you understand the extent of his punishment he will receive by leading all you left-loonies by the nose-ring down to the pit of Hell with him? It will be no laughing matter when you bunch of shallow, arrogant, in-bred, neanderthals on the left reach agonizingly upward from out of the clutches of Hell for just a drop of cool water to sooth your blood-boiling tongue and never receive it……….for all eternity. Get some intelligence and sit down and read the Bible before it’s too late and the devil pulls you back down with him…………it’s already a done deal for him and he knows it. He’s taking as many as he can fool with him before our Savior returns. If your name’s not in the Lamb’s Book of Life your going to Hell……………..seriously think about it. We’re all sinners! We can’t save ourselves. We need Jesus for that. Ask him into your life and watch the changes that occur…………you won’t regret it, I promise.

  • Why didn’t MR. Barack Obama just say an unexspected pregnancy. In stead of calling it punished with a baby. All children are a gift from God. My mom once told me I was a mistake and I told her I was glad that I was a mistake cause that lets me know that God wanted me hear. So call it what it is unless you really mean something eles.

  • Oh my, these comments are appalling. I would have thought that anyone could understand that Sen. Obama misspoke when he referred to his grandchild as a “punishment.” I am genuinely shocked by the animosity so many people are expressing against those of us who consider ourselves Christians and/or conservatives. I can only say that this fury truly makes me re-evaluate my words and actions, to be sure I eliminate any hypocrisy or judgementalism–that can only be right. Please let me try to assure you that the Christians I know adore children, whether they have been born yet or not. Adoption is such a loving choice, and I wish it were a more common one. I have three children (so far), and I hope that if one of them ever faces a teenage pregnancy, they would have the courage to bear that precious baby and give it to adoptive parents, who had been praying for a child. And by the way, I also consider marriage a blessing…if you knew my husband you would see what I mean.

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