The Electron Pencil

Teen Pregnancy & Market Forces

Much has been made over the Fortune magazine writer who claimed on Fox News (where else?) that unwed teenagers who give up their babies for adoption face some kind of stigma and that other teenies who gulp contraceptive pills are somehow celebrated.

Nina Easton says this holy land has been sullied by a rash of teen abortions in recent years and, by golly, something has to be done about it. Why, though, Easton wonders, are birth control-using teens (read: sluts) encouraged when those who follow god’s writ by carrying the result of a romp in the basement while Demi Lovato’s screeches cover their moans and groans to full term are made to feel icky about it?

The lipless, uber-white commentator feels that in a fair, just, and sacred world we should yell huzzah when a teen gets preggers and announces her intention to ship the kid off to another family. Throwing a party for any teen girl who uses birth control, in Easton’s Eden, is just wrong.

Nina Easton

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Weird, I know, but, hey, pretty much every argument the anti-woman, pro-invisible-law-giver-in-the-sky gang makes about reproductive rights comes straight out of Nurse Ratchet’s nuthouse.

And there’s nothing like an employee of a periodical whose raison d’etre is to champion gaudy materialism and greedy soullessness giving us family advice.

Here’s Wonkette’s take on Easton’s verbal upchuck: “She is advocating that we let teenagers have babies and then celebrate when they give the babies to richer, nicer people who can afford Pottery Barn furniture and vote Republican.”

Aviva Shen of Think Progress noticed that Easton’s hand-wringing over abortion fails to take into account a key point: “Meanwhile, teen pregnancies are at their lowest rate in 40 years, thanks to expanded birth control and abortion access.”

Ah, but Shen forgets that there’s only so much pricey furniture one can fit into one’s home before one feels the need to complete the showcase by acquiring an even more expensive trophy purchase; that is, one’s very own Baby Einstein.

So, poor, dumb, slutty teens, get humping! The Free Market has created a demand for your product.

Get Yours Today!

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Your Room Is Ready, Sir

BTW: If the above rant doesn’t earn me the lightning bolt followed by a one-way ticket to Beelzebub’s entrance foyer, then Hell just doesn’t exist. I ain’t worried.

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Hellfire

On the other hand, there’s gotta be a Hell for all those who, in the last 68 years, have looted humanity’s treasuries and scientific capabilities to create a stockpile of tens of thousands of nuclear weapons.

Here’s a chillingly graphic illustration of the number of actual big booms humankind has produced since the early morning hours of July 16, 1945, at the Trinity test site in New Mexico. Have a nice day!

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