Why does nobody seem to get the point that for an adolescent mistake 17-year-old Bristol Palin is about to pay with her youth in what looks suspiciously like a shotgun marriage to make an honest woman of her?

completely agree. why should she be "punished" for her mistake.

It's too bad, but then again, it's not like she can get an abortion, can she? Same deal with her boyfriend, he's stuck marrying her thanks to politics.

I hope they come out of it ok, but I wonder if her mom is thinking about what her political ambition is doing to her family. I'd be very upset about that myself.

Who says she has to get an abortion? Juno didn't. Nor did she marry her impregnator.

First it was a CHOICE not a mistake.....

First it was a CHOICE not a mistake.

You are correct. Bristol Palin made a choice to have premarital sex... unless she was date-raped by her boyfriend, in which case she should not be marrying him. (Yes, boyfriends can rape their girlfriends. When she says no and he says "You don't really mean that. No means yes" and goes ahead anyway.)

There are plenty of reasons why a 16 or 17 year old girl may want to become pregnant and have a baby. For one thing, it conveys a certain amount of independence from her parents. She will now be on equal footing with her mother in terms of being a mother - a very important role for women. For another thing, she may have wanted to marry her boyfriend and either he or her parents did not want that. Getting pregnant would accomplish her goal. Or maybe she sees how Angelina Jolie is continually lauded for having babies and scrutinized by the press for any signs of a telltale 'baby bump.' It is cool to be pregnant nowadays. Everyone's favorite stars are appearing pregnant on the front pages of magazines, or selling the panted-after "first baby photos!!!!" for millions of dollars. Celebrity pregnancy has never been more publicized or lauded as it is today. Maybe Bristol just wanted to be cool.

Maybe she wants to be a mother. Nothing wrong with that -- it is a very important role which many females have desired since they were themselves children. Maybe she wants to be a wife and a mother and she wants to do it now and having sex is, after all, the only way to accomplish at least the motherhood part.

At any rate, absent forced penetration from her boyfriend, Bristol made her own choice. It was no mistake if she willingly had unprotected sex with her boyfriend.

I have a friend here in the Northwest who has just made a contribution to Planned Parenthood. He has noted that his contribution is to be made on behalf of. . . . . . the McCain/Palin Campaign. Too funny!! How can we bring this matter to Gary Trudeau's attention!!?

Maybe she does want to be a wife and mother, and maybe she would have made that choice even if her mother hadn't thrown her into the spotlight. But we'll never know, will we? And now she has no choice, because politics preclude any answer aside from marriage and motherhood.

You can only imagine the resentment in that family over the years, especially if McCain loses and it turns out Bristol's sham marriage was for nothing...

Suppose Bristol Palin had made a bolder move and said "I'm having the baby but I'm not getting married just to make the Republican party happy." What would have happened then?

I'm in!

I firmly believe that the decision to get married and the decision to have a child must come in that order. Getting married to someone because you got pregnant- not necessarily because you love them just does not sound like the recipe for a happy marriage (I know there are exceptions). I feel for Bristol and her new fiance because I do feel that at least one of those decisions got made for them. I hope they truly can make their peace with the direction their lives are taking. But god- they are so young!