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CBS News: Bristol Palin the Face of 'Growing Crisis' Teenage Pregnancy
Newsbusters ^ | January 8, 2009 - 16:51 ET | Kyle Drennen

Posted on 01/09/2009 8:10:32 AM PST by lewisglad

In the final half hour of Thursday’s CBS Early Show, correspondent Bianca Solorzano reported on an increase in the teen pregnancy rate, using Bristol Palin as an example: "Teen pregnancy was on the RNC platform this year, literally, as Sarah Palin's 18-year-old daughter, Bristol, was about to give birth. Jamie Lynne Spears made headlines at 16, not for her acting, but the grown-up, real-life role of becoming a teen mom. These famous faces front a growing problem." A graphic appeared on screen declaring: "Teen Pregnancy: The Growing Crisis."

Later, Solorzano explained: "After more than a decade of progress, experts fear we've been lulled into a false sense of security. And have stopped pouring resources into prevention." A clip of the movie ‘Juno’ was then played, after which Solorzano exclaimed: "And unlike the comedy 'Juno,' there's nothing funny about the nation's growing number of teenage mothers."

Here is the full transcript of the segment:

8:31AM SEGMENT:

RUSS MITCHELL: We're going to begin this half hour with a story about teen pregnancies on the rise. It is a reversal of recent trends. CBS News correspondent Bianca Solorzano has more.

[GRAPHIC ON SCREEN: 'Teen Pregnancy: The Growing Crisis']

BIANCA SOLORZANO: Teen pregnancy was on the RNC platform this year, literally, as Sarah Palin's 18-year-old daughter, Bristol, was about to give birth. Jamie Lynne Spears made headlines at 16, not for her acting, but the grown-up, real-life role of becoming a teen mom. These famous faces front a growing problem. A new report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows for the first time in almost 15 years, the number of teen birth rates is on the rise.

BILL ALBERT [NATIONAL TEEN PREGNANCY CAMPAIGN]: We've got a problem nationally, that we've got a problem in nearly every state, and that we have a problem among all racial and ethnic groups.

SOLORZANO: Teen births are up significantly in 26 states. Mississippi now leads the nation with the highest teen pregnancy rate. 68 births for every 1,000 teenage girls. New Mexico and Texas aren't far behind. In comparison, New Hampshire has the nation's lowest rate. 19 births for every 1,000 female teens. After more than a decade of progress, experts fear we've been lulled into a false sense of security. And have stopped pouring resources into prevention.

[CLIP OF MOVIE 'JUNO']

JENNIFER GARNER: Your parents are probably wondering where you are.

ELLEN PAGE: Nah, I mean, I'm already pregnant, so what other kind of shenanigans could I get into?

[END OF CLIP]

SOLORZANO: And unlike the comedy 'Juno,' there's nothing funny about the nation's growing number of teenage mothers. Bianca Solorzano, CBS News, New York.

—Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center.


TOPICS: Extended News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Alaska
KEYWORDS: palin; palinfamily; teenpregnancy
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To: lewisglad

Teen Pregnancy SHOULD be a family issue not a government or a “cause of the week” issue for the media. There have been and there always will be teen pregnancies.....


41 posted on 01/09/2009 8:33:32 AM PST by Le Chien Rouge
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To: LottieDah
Didn’t have to read the story. The headline was enough to make me heave.

Well, it's true that Newsbusters.org is proving itself to be as misleading as the MSM (or more so). Like your comment illustrates, they have misrepresented the comment by pulling part out of context and presenting it separately.

42 posted on 01/09/2009 8:34:05 AM PST by Gondring (Paul Revere would have been flamed as a naysayer troll and told to go back to Boston.)
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To: lewisglad

If Bristol went out tomorrow and got broadsided by a van of illegals, she’d be headlined as “Heartless, Cruel and Bigoted”. There is NOTHING this family will be able to get away with for the next 4 years.


43 posted on 01/09/2009 8:34:37 AM PST by albie
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To: lady lawyer
When the heck are they going to get married? Why didn’t they marry before the birth so that the baby could be legitimate? Is she waiting so that she can have a big fancy wedding with a fancy dress? It seems to me that they fact that they haven’t already gotten married is a clear message that they have no respect for traditional, conservative social values.

I am sorry you have done everything perfect in your life. The kids had sex (shouldn't have). But it is over and they are doing the right thing.

Sorry some of us fall short of perfection.

44 posted on 01/09/2009 8:35:12 AM PST by GUNGAGALUNGA
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To: lady lawyer
When the heck are they going to get married? Why didn’t they marry before the birth so that the baby could be legitimate? Is she waiting so that she can have a big fancy wedding with a fancy dress? It seems to me that they fact that they haven’t already gotten married is a clear message that they have no respect for traditional, conservative social values. I like Sarah, but this whole episode is sad.

Well put. Our agreement with many of Palin's positions seems to have blinded many of us to this incident.

Let's be 100% honest and admit we wouldn't be talking about a Democrat VP parent the way we have about Palin if his/her daughter were in exactly the same position.

45 posted on 01/09/2009 8:36:57 AM PST by Darkwolf377
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To: GUNGAGALUNGA

Yes, thank you. I did wait until I was married to have sex and get pregnant. If that makes me an object of scorn to you, there’s nothing I can do about it.

But the post wasn’t about the getting pregnant, was it? Sarah and Todd had a shotgun wedding. When good kids messed up and got pregnant, getting married so that the child could be born in wedlock, and not illegitimate, was considered the decent thing to do. Sarah and Todd did it.

But, apparently Bristol doesn’t think it is important.


46 posted on 01/09/2009 8:38:02 AM PST by lady lawyer
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To: utahagen
the couple is sending the message that marriage is just a formality.

Considering the way the government and our culture treats marriage and add in no-fault divorce laws. Marriage is just a formality.

47 posted on 01/09/2009 8:38:07 AM PST by Centurion2000 (To protect and defend ... against all enemies, foreign and domestic .... by any means necessary.)
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To: lewisglad; trisham
The whole gallery of the Palins at the RNC. Heartwarming pictures.
48 posted on 01/09/2009 8:38:59 AM PST by SolidWood (Sarah Palin - Everything that is Sweetness and Light!)
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To: Gondring
Sarah Palin is a Republican.

Dang! Had I known this on November 4!

49 posted on 01/09/2009 8:41:08 AM PST by SolidWood (Sarah Palin - Everything that is Sweetness and Light!)
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To: SolidWood
Dang! Had I known this on November 4!

Yeah, it would have stopped you from looking like a fool 20 minutes ago!

50 posted on 01/09/2009 8:43:13 AM PST by Gondring (Paul Revere would have been flamed as a naysayer troll and told to go back to Boston.)
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To: lewisglad

Funny how the MSM acts surprised this is happening when kids today are inundated with nothing but sex.


51 posted on 01/09/2009 8:44:15 AM PST by rintense (Go Israel!)
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To: utahagen
I am going to start praying that Bristol and Levi marry SOON.

Why stop at half measures? Go to Wasilla and protest!

(Pack your long wollen underwear, It's cold and dark up there now)

52 posted on 01/09/2009 8:44:27 AM PST by Oztrich Boy ("The urge to save humanity is almost always a false face for the urge to rule." - H L Mencken.)
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To: sean_og
So must the embedded Mitt supporters here on FR it seems...
53 posted on 01/09/2009 8:46:00 AM PST by ejonesie22 (Stupidity has an expiration date 1-20-2013 *(Thanks Nana))
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To: Darnright
It's not the young girls "giving birth" that's the real problem ~ it's the adults in their life forcing them to kill their babies.

Actually, with the avant garde type folks being so embarrassed about having babies at all, and making sure they kill off all their own progeny, the consequence is they've become a smaller percentage of the population.

The remaining folks like babies fine and have them whenver and wherever that happens.

Hence, the percentages increase in the pro-baby side while declining on the anti-life side.

The math is remarkably simple.

54 posted on 01/09/2009 8:47:05 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: Darkwolf377
Let's be 100% honest and admit we wouldn't be talking about a Democrat VP parent the way we have about Palin if his/her daughter were in exactly the same position.

There was only passing interest even on FR about the Biden sons' shady Deutsche Bank dealings... and I can't remember Freepers badmouthing Obama's daughters (no the libs aren't sparing Willow, Piper and Trig either). To the contrary... Sasha and Malia are constantly praised as adorable girls, even though their daddy is the biggest crook.

Not enough, we had prayer threads for the ailing Teddy Kennedy.

But I tell you... after the Palin character-assasination campaign by the left, I'll apply the same standard on their candidates from now on.

55 posted on 01/09/2009 8:48:18 AM PST by SolidWood (Sarah Palin - Everything that is Sweetness and Light!)
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To: lady lawyer
as if every Mommy in the world who had “conservative values” was able to lock up her 17 yr old teenager and stop her from having sex

a sad fact for some of us who have raised teenagers is- they don't always do what we tell them to do, expect them to do, and model for them to do. Sometimes those teenager even .... make a mistake in judgement.

Which, I suppose you infer, when a teenager makes a mistake in moral judgement, it makes their mother a BAD or poor or incompetent mother who lacks character and morals?

Look, Bristol KEPT the BABY. Abortion could have been private convenient, quick and secret.

Did you see Bristol holding her Down syndrome baby brother and cuddling him. Do you think her mother has not taught her good values?

Bristol has stood up to ridicule hate and scorn of the entire media establishment, total attempt to redestroy her character and that of her mother and father and boyfriend. The media (and some “republicans”) use of her lapse of judgement in engaging in premarital sex - to try and drum her mother out of public life.

When Sarah Palin at the RNC convention, stood up in front of the world, with that Downs Syndrome baby in her arms, I did not think she had to, or will ever have to, “purport” to be a conservative or a leader. Nor do I think she need be ashamed of her daughter as a separate person, present and future.

56 posted on 01/09/2009 8:48:43 AM PST by silverleaf (Fasten your seat belts- it's going to be a BUMPY ride.)
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To: lady lawyer

Sarah and Todd were grown adults and didn’t have a “shotgun” marriage ~ I believe they simply eloped.


57 posted on 01/09/2009 8:48:49 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah

She was pregnant with Track when they eloped. That information came out during the campaign.


58 posted on 01/09/2009 8:49:35 AM PST by lady lawyer
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To: Darnright
I’d think the bigger crisis is the overwhelming incidence of young girls who give birth without any commitment whatsoever on the part of the “baby daddy”.

Or those who pay a butcher to murder their little innocent in the womb.

Would that Bristol and Levi really were the face of teen pregnancy. Sadly, because they chose to have the baby and get married, they are the exception--which is part of why the left hates them so much.
59 posted on 01/09/2009 8:51:31 AM PST by Antoninus (America didn't turn away from conservatism, they turned away from many who faked it. - Mark Sanford)
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To: lewisglad

This is a story that has failed to consider the demographics.

What demographic sector is the fastest increase in population? Is this sector contributing to an overall increase in pregnancy? What is it about these pregnancies that are different?

When these questions are not asked, this is why the MSM is entering the age of the dinosaur.


60 posted on 01/09/2009 8:51:40 AM PST by jonrick46
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