I was very unimpressed with some rumours I read within hours of the announcement that Sarah Palin was running for VP on the McCain ticket: to whit, rumours that infant Trig was in fact not her son but was instead the son of her eldest daughter, and that she had faked her own pregnancy to cover up for Bristol’s premarital sexual experience.
For a start, the rumours to me seemed to be utterly unaware of the variations in people’s pregnancies, and that for most women pregnancy is not a debilitating condition (especially when one is a dedicated runner and superbly physically fit). Someone even said that a pregnant woman would not use an earthy metaphor about guts, as if a growing belly turns every pregnant woman into a swooning belle with an excessively delicate sensibility. This was rightly mocked by some more conservative bloggers who do at least have rather more familiarity with pregnancy than do many progressive bloggers.
So, it’s now been announced that Palin’s daughter Bristol is pregnant – approximately five months pregnant, and planning to marry the father of her unborn child. Infant Trig is four months old. The maths does not compute.
Yes, there are other aspects worth examination and commentary of the narrative surrounding both Palin’s pregnancy with Trig and Bristol’s current pregnancy, especially considering Palin’s documented vociferous opposition to any sex-education other than abstinence-only, but I always knew that this one would come back to bite the rumour-mongers in the arse.
The Obama campaign has made a mannerly announcement wishing the family well and noting that candidate’s families should be off limits anyway. For a family that has been dissected as thoroughly and hostilely as the Obamas have over the past year, this is a generous tack to take. Those of us who remember some of the nastier slings and arrows hurled towards the Bush twins, Chelsea Clinton and earlier Amy Carter might wonder whether it’s futile though, although it would be pleasant to think that commentors might finally show better judgement regarding where the lines are drawn.
However much candidates might wish otherwise, at least some elements of their lives with their families will continue to be examined as part of assessing the candidate’s own character. Because how people relate to their own families is an important part of who that person is, so it’s no wonder that the electorate cares about this stuff. It is relevant, up to a point: a candidate should obviously not be expected to control what the other people in their family choose to do or not to do. Nevertheless a candidate’s reactions to family crises and divisions do provide an insight into the candidate’s character that all the speeches in the world cannot do.
The great big honking dividing line? Analysing responses to family events should not be taken as a license for revelling in scandal. Various bloggers decided to revel in scandal in their speculations about the parentage of infant Trig. It is correct that if it had been proven that Palin had engaged in deception over the pregnancy then it would have been very revealing of certain aspects of her character, although not only in negative ways (many people would have admired such an effort expended to protect the reputation of her daughter). That did not justify some of the revolting sentiments displayed in comments threads – sexist, ableist, bigoted towards rural communities, and simply ignorant (as mentioned above) about pregnancy generally.
Wake up and smell the privilege, Kossacks. Then back the hell off. By concentrating so much on the personal rather than the political you are letting this simplistic conservative candidate get all the inside running, and it’s playing in her favour. That doesn’t help keep McCain out of the White House, dudes. Criticise some of her actual executive decisions and policy positions for a while now, please.
Categories: culture wars, ethics & philosophy, media, Politics
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The comment from the Obama campaign, was Obama himself, verbally to reporters not just a press release. I saw the footage on CNN and he was very firm about it.
No excuses: Put down the Cheetohs, I repeat, put down the Cheetohs! And back the hell away, dudez.
You strike the right note in acknowledging where legitimate interest and questions lie and where they don’t, so does Shakesville in a couple of posts.
Probably the most annoying part of this is all the effort we have to expend *defending* the Republican candidate because of *Democratic* misogyny. Arrgh.
Good explanation of the dividing line between appropriate and inappropriate family scrutiny, thank you.
And good on Obama, his strong reaction to this–not a prepared statement–reveals good things about his character.
Lordy. I’d somehow managed to avoid these discussions (working in internet-free land) so I’ve just looked at it now. So many people prepared to say “there’s no way a pregnant woman would look like that because I didn’t when I was pregnant” or “my partner didn’t look like that when she was pregnant so this woman must be lying” or “there’s no way a pregnant woman would do this because I/my partner wouldn’t”.
Can’t believe I’m defending a Republican candidate either, but this woman had already had four children, surely it’s not unreasonable to think she’d know her own body, and how long she’d previously laboured?
From what’s been reported, some of Palin’s decisions surrounding the birth of Trig are very much not what I would have done in the same situation (nothing to do with the Downs in this case, talking about the birth itself). But I’m not her, and I can’t speak for her. I can still ask questions though, especially with what seem to be unnecessary risks.
Someone wrote that many health insurers in the States won’t cover birth costs if the birth doesn’t take place in the state of residence, so that could well explain the flight home to Alaska from Texas after her uterus started to leak fluid. I wonder if that also explains choosing further travel to a small hospital with no Neonatal ICU for a woman in premature labour? Why not stay in Anchorage with the big hospital? That’s certainly not the choice that I would have made in the same situation. If her choice was constrained by insurance requirements, that would be newsworthy.
All the banging on about how even if it really was her baby then she’d been “irresponsible” trundling round on planes up till the last minute gave me the heaves as well. This is a very fit woman who’s already had four or whatever it is babies, knows her own body very well, and is a tough backwoods gal used to getting up at 3 am to shoot moose and so on (yes, *splorf*, of course, but that’s not the point here) — if she’d taken to her bed and put her feet up for a month before the birth they would have given her hell about that as well. (Potential Commander-in-Chief takes to her bed, shock horror etc.)
Post-Lewinsky is it now simply the norm for US political commentators on either side to automatically smear, trash and demonise the other side on whatever tiny basis they think they might have? Or was it always that anyway?
Also, the level of ignorance regarding “uterine leakage” on display generally is pretty appalling. That is not the same as “waters breaking”, Palin did not immediately go into labour, she was not in labour while she made the speech, and she was almost certainly also not in labour while she was travelling back to Alaska.
It’s most likely that labour was subsequently induced at the hospital at which she eventually arrived. Inductions within a day or two after uterine leakage begins are standard procedure.
I still wonder why one would choose the smaller hospital over the big hospital in the state capital in such circumstances, but she certainly wasn’t nearly as “irresponsible” as some commentary suggests. P.S. maybe she just wanted to be as close to home as possible for the birth (how bizarre, eh?)
Scalzi’s take 😉
1. The rumors that Governor Palin is actually the grandmother of her most recent child rather than the mother are appallingly stupid, so if you believed them even for a minute, please hit yourself on the head with a hammer. Hard. Twice.
http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=1559
“I still wonder why one would choose the smaller hospital over the big hospital in the state capital in such circumstances, but she certainly wasn’t nearly as “irresponsible” as some commentary suggests. ”
Perhaps the smaller hospital had lower rates of intervention? Or perhaps it was where her chosen doctor practiced and she didn’t want to birth her child with a strange doctor?
In any account, inducing for fluid leakage might be standard practice, but it’s a pretty stupid idea.
There is a non-trivial risk of infection once there is a tear in the amniotic sac. If the baby was very premature it might be better to maintain the pregnancy and give the mother antiobiotics etc, but in this case the pregnancy was already 8 months in – I don’t see that induction at 8 months is a stupid idea.
Disclosure: in my first pregnancy I was induced at right on 9 months gestation due to a slow amniotic fluid leak. If I’d known more then, maybe I would have waited for a few more days to see what would happen. I was fairly keen for that baby to come out though.
A leak, as opposed to broken, can potentially reseal if it’s left alone. (Another study here.
And of course infection does occur, but it’s not like you can’t monitor and see what happens – and avoiding vaginal exams is a great way to avoid infections, too.
I know eight months isn’t *that* early, but it’s still earlier than a baby should be born, all things being fair and equal, and the risks of being born at eight months are no less trivial than the risks of infection.
But I think I’m probably derailing the topic at this point.
Just wait for the conspiracy theories that say that her eldest daughter deliberately got pregnant, just to ensure that rumours her mother didn’t give birth to Trig could be scotched!
I don’t know what the Alaska state plan involves (obviously), but it’s pretty typical for US insurance plans to distinguish emergency from non-emergency treatment, as well as to have reciprocal arrangements with plans in other states. I can’t imagine an insurance-related reason for her actions returning to Alaska. The one quote I’ve seen at several locations suggests that she and her husband simply wanted the baby to be born in Alaska, if at all possible, but didn’t give reasons.
And there’s always the possibility that Palin, like many politicians, is exaggerating in order to look tough and focused on her constituents. That was my assumption, and it seems much more likely than many of the alternative theories! Either way, I’m far more interested in her language of “choice” for herself and her daughter and her active promotion of “no choice” for everyone else.
Perhaps she feels like she shouldn’t have to justify her decisions about her pregnancy and birth to the world at large, and so isn’t saying anything about why she chose that particular hospital, or wanted to fly home.
It’s quite possible that since she knew she was having a child with down’s syndrome, who might well have had other associated health problems at birth, she actually wanted to be somewhere where the baby’s health could not be too aggressively managed if it turned out that their condition was not compatible with life.
That’s probably the decision I’d make, if my membranes had ruptured early enough that I couldn’t birth at home.
Mindy, the theory I’ve heard is that Bristol Palin’s current pregnancy isn’t real, and has been made up in order to scotch the rumours, and that after the election she will have a tragic outcome.
Whether that is more or les cynical than your version I shall leave up to you!
That’s a good one Rainne.
God, that would be an awful thing to do to a seventeen-year-old. Forcing her to lie about her body to the entire world? Despicable, and for her sake I hope that this isn’t true. Then again, I wouldn’t’ve wanted to marry and give birth when I was seventeen, either. So none of the competing stories are wonderful for poor Bristol.
Genevieves last blog post..Dudes, you’re all, like, so ignorant and sexist, like
Oh, I’m totally revelling in the rumours. I’ve always been a sucker for a good conspiracy theory.
Mind you, rumours aside there is a delicious irony in the fact that abstinence only education within Palin’s own home obviously failed. Why she wants to force it into Alaskan (and subsequently all) schools is beyond me.
“This was rightly mocked by some more conservative bloggers who do at least have rather more familiarity with pregnancy than do many progressive bloggers.”
Oh, yes, all us progressives are way too busy having abortions and having gay sex to be actually concerned with having babies.
Rebecca, I was referring to the young male progressive blogger demographic there. They are mostly pretty up front about their lack of sprogs, and they are the ones leading the charge in the Birthgate rumour stakes.