{"id":436,"date":"2009-02-17T18:42:59","date_gmt":"2009-02-17T18:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/bristol-palin-abstinence-is-no.html"},"modified":"2009-02-17T18:42:59","modified_gmt":"2009-02-17T18:42:59","slug":"bristol-palin-abstinence-is-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/bristol-palin-abstinence-is-no.html","title":{"rendered":"Bristol Palin: “Abstinence is Not Realistic”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u00c2\u00a0“The best option is abstinence, the teen said, but added that she didn’t think that was “realistic.”\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Bristol Palin dropped this bombshell in an interview with Fox News about teenage pregnancy. \u00c2\u00a0I agree with her. Sexual abstinence as a teenage is the best option, especially if the end goal is avoiding pregnancy. \u00c2\u00a0But abstinence also provides time for a person to make sure they are mentally, physically and spiritually ready to be sexually active and not just doing it because of peer pressure. \u00c2\u00a0<\/div>\n
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The point that Ms. Palin is making is that just telling kids to abstain is not a sure fire thing. \u00c2\u00a0My feeling is that the more knowledge you give a young person, the more likely they are to make smart decisions. \u00c2\u00a0Talking to teenagers about the importance of contraception and protection against sexually transmitted\u00c2\u00a0diseases\u00c2\u00a0is not the same thing as encouraging people to have sex – it is giving them knowledge and knowledge is power. \u00c2\u00a0 If they don’t decide to abstain from sex, at least they will avoid some of the most permanent potential\u00c2\u00a0consequences. \u00c2\u00a0<\/div>\n
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Ultimately, the best solution to the problem of teenage pregnancy might be feminism. \u00c2\u00a0Empower young women to respect themselves and know that their worth is unrelated to how much sex they can have, but rather how much integrity and self reliance they possess. Then you will have less girls being pregnant, and more powerful women who will be able to make all kinds of life choices for themselves. \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u00c2\u00a0“The best option is abstinence, the teen said, but added that she didn’t think that was “realistic.”\u00c2\u00a0 Bristol Palin dropped this bombshell in an interview with Fox News about teenage pregnancy. \u00c2\u00a0I agree with her. Sexual abstinence as a teenage is the best option, especially if the end goal is avoiding pregnancy. \u00c2\u00a0But abstinence also…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicals"],"yoast_head":"\nBristol Palin: "Abstinence is Not Realistic" - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/bristol-palin-abstinence-is-no.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bristol Palin: "Abstinence is Not Realistic" - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u00c2\u00a0“The best option is abstinence, the teen said, but added that she didn’t think that was “realistic.”\u00c2\u00a0 Bristol Palin dropped this bombshell in an interview with Fox News about teenage pregnancy. \u00c2\u00a0I agree with her. 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Paul B. Raushenbush is the moderator of the Progressive Revival blog and the Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University. .An ordained American Baptist minister, Rev. Raushenbush speaks and preaches at colleges, churches and institutes around the country including the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., The Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York, and the New America Foundation. Rev. Raushenbush has served at Seattle First Baptist Church, the Presbyterian Chaplaincy at Columbia University and as College and Young Adult Minister at The Riverside Church in New York City. He has appeared on ABC World News Tonight and is a repeated guest on CNN. He has been quoted in The New York Times and The Washington Post and is a contributing editor for Beliefnet.com. His first book, Teen Spirit: One World, Many Faiths (HCI) was released in the Fall of 2004. He is the editor of the 100th Anniversary edition of Walter Rauschenbusch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book Christianity and the Social Crisis \u00e2\u20ac\u201c In the 21st Century (HarperOne). His work at Princeton includes strengthening the interfaith community on campus. He is the Co-Director of the Program on Religion, Diplomacy and International Relations at The Liechtenstein Institute on Self Determination at Princeton University. Rev. Raushenbush studied religion at Macalester College before attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he graduated with distinction.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/praushenbush"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}