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"I don?t want them punished with a baby."

By Ann Althouse

A quote from Barack Obama, talking about the importance of teaching kids about contraception.

Or do you think he was talking about abortion? Sean Hannity does. And the blogs go wild.

Obama is obviously talking about contraception education, but there is an implicit ? albeit deniable ? signal about abortion rights. Note that he says "I'm going to teach [my daughters] first of all about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby." If they make a mistake, doesn't that mean they failed to use contraception? It suggests that to a lot of people, but I think he took the position that it would be a mistake to have sex at all, and therefore he wants them to know to use contraception ? that is, to make a mistake with less consequence.

Full post as published by Althouse on April 01, 2008 (boomark / email).