Palin pregnancy and Irish hypocrisy

THE reaction of the Irish media to the news that Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter is pregnant highlighted the deep-rooted hypocrisy in our society around such issues.

You would be forgiven for thinking that no Irish family had ever found itself in this situation, such was the wave of tut-tutting that surrounded the story.

With an estimated 7,000 teenage pregnancies here last year (that’s one in every 40 teenage girls age 15-19), are we really in any position to cast judgment on the Palin family?

The fact that Sarah Palin’s daughter has made the courageous decision to keep the baby seems to have been completely ignored. Unfortunately, more than 4,000 Irish girls shirk this responsibility every year.

Another undercurrent of the commentary on this subject has been the suggestion that Sarah Palin is somehow neglecting her young family by choosing to run for such a high office.

Last week, Terry Prone, a regular columnist in your newspaper, said on RTÉ (which is fast becoming the Obama campaign’s Irish headquarters) that Sarah Palin’s decision to accept the nomination in the knowledge that her family would be placed in the spotlight was “the nearest thing to human sacrifice”.

Ms Prone has written extensively in your newspaper, decrying the fact that so few women are willing to run for office.

Is she in the least bit surprised that this is the case when she herself is willing to make such an outrageous attack on a woman who has agreed to put her name in front of the voters for what would be the highest political office ever achieved by a female?

Or is it that Ms Prone wants to see more women in politics — just as long as they share her own political outlook?

Barry Walsh

Brooklawn

Clontarf

Dublin 3