On Fox News Sunday this morning, panelist Nina Easton made a rather startling argument – that we start “celebrating” young women who get pregnant and give up their babies for adoption as an alternative to abortion. Unfortunately, she failed to consider – and nobody brought it up, either – the problems faced by pregnant teens and the fact that teens who go through pregnancy are more likely to decide to keep their baby and struggle in poverty as a result.
In a discussion about the FDA’s decision to make Plan B available to young women ages 15 and over, Easton said:
I do think there’s a case to be made for conservatives or anybody who cares about the rate of abortions in this country to deregulate birth control more, although I also understand a need for parents to be involved. One of the things out of all of this news, and including the president’s speech to Planned Parenthood and this Gosnell case of murdering babies, is we’re looking at a culture that produces 1.2 million abortions a year. We’re losing sight of that fact. And I would say that in addition to deregulating birth control, another thing we need to do is celebrate young women who bring a baby to term and find an adoptive parent. There’s such a stigma today to being an adoptive birth mom that you’re more willing to admit that you’ve had an abortion than that you are delivering a healthy newborn to a loving family. What’s wrong with our culture that that’s where we are today?
Referring to a campaign by the National Council on Adoption, Easton later said, “I would say, on the eve of Mother’s Day, next week, that we should all check that out and start celebrating these young women who choose life for their babies.”
Moderator Chris Wallace seemed to endorse the sentiments. “Well, it is a brave decision,” he said.
Brave, yes. But with serious consequences that should have been mentioned. As Think Progress noted:
While it’s true that only 1 percent of single pregnant women choose adoption, Easton glosses over the difficulty involved in maintaining a normal life for 9 months as a pregnant teenager. Moreover, birthmothers under 17 are more likely to change their minds about the adoption and keep the baby, making them vulnerable to dropping out of high school and a permanent cycle of poverty that entraps the majority of teen moms.
...Meanwhile, teen pregnancies are at their lowest rate in 40 years, thanks to expanded birth control and abortion access.
Video below via Think Progress.