Kathleen Parker and the War on Women

Kathleen Parker is one of those people who appears to have an amazing ability not to blush, at least on paper. Take for her example her screed about "The silly, selective ‘war on women’":

Let’s be clear. The war on women is based on just one thing — abortion rights. While it is true that access to abortion has been restricted in several states owing to Republican efforts, it is not true that women as a whole care only or mostly about abortion.

Well, no. The Republican war on women is about women's reproductive rights in general, and notably includes sex education, access to birth control and insurance coverage for birth control. More than that, it includes no small amount of "slut shaming", and a huffy dismissal of the notion that women haven't achieved wage equality with men. If you don't believe me, take a look at this column by a person named "Kathleen Parker" in which she admits that the "war on women" includes insurance coverage for birth control. Parker makes a fascinating argument,

The alleged war on women was based essentially on the notion that people who think abortion is a bad idea — or who don’t think the government should mandate insurance coverage for birth-control coverage — are anti-woman. Democrats point mainly to new state laws that have limited access to abortion, not to mention the unforgettable observations of a few Republican men about “legitimate” rape and so on.

Whatever one’s own position, Republicans could be characterized as waging a war on women only if no women agreed with the premises mentioned above.

That sort of illogical and narrow thinking is mirrored by those who defend the practice of female genital mutilation by arguing that the arrangements for mutilation are made by mothers, for their daughters, and the procedure is performed by women. If even one woman is involved in the practice, under Parker's logic, the practice cannot be deemed oppressive toward women. Would Parker argue that slavery in the U.S. cannot be said to be oppressive to the slaves because there were black slave owners? I would hope not, but that argument would be completely consistent with her logic.

Next take a look at this column also by somebody named "Kathleen Parker" in which she whines that evil liberals want small children to have access to the "morning after pill". Parker's concern is, of course, not about safety or whether one over-the-counter medication should be treated differently than others based on objective concerns -- her concern is that a minor might be able to go into a pharmacy and purchase a medication that is safer than a lot of the other OTC drugs the same minor is free to purchase, without having to tell an adult that she's sexually active.

Fundamentally, though, she's making a "What about the children" argument in order to distract us from the fact that she's defending people who want to keep certain forms of birth control (and in some cases, all forms of birth control) out of the hands of women of any age. But even if we ignore that fact, contrary to Parker's pretense, the issue is not one about the role of government in relation to the family. It's about the relationship of parents and their daughters, and whether the government should stick itself into the middle of that relationship by imposing nanny state rules to keep certain OTC medications out of the hands of minors. Parker also pretends that she has safety concerns about the morning-after pill, never mind that pregnancy and childbirth are vastly more dangerous to young women than the pill she hopes to keep out of their hands.

Next take a look at this column, also... wow... by somebody named Kathleen Parker,

With each generation, the question becomes more declarative and querulous. Recent demographic shifts show women gaining supremacy across a spectrum of quantitative measures, including education and employment. Women outnumber men in college and in most graduate fields. Increasingly, owing in part to the recession and job loss in historically male-dominated fields, they are surpassing men as wage-earners, though women still lag behind at the highest income and executive levels.

So you see, women are doing just fine, thank you very much, and what you really need to focus on is how terribly men are doing -- "If we continue to impose low expectations and negative messaging on men and boys, future women won’t have much to choose from." Except it's implicit in Parker's argument that, at least outside of college enrollment numbers, men are doing as well as or better than women.

For more evidence of my point, you need only read further into Parker's column about the "silly" war on women,

Yet Sandra Fluke, whose appeal for insurance coverage of birth control prompted Limbaugh to call her a “slut,” was elevated to martyr status and perhaps a political career.

I suspect that most people had forgotten about Sandra Fluke before Parker brought her up, but she's a great example of how Republicans engage in anti-birth control rhetoric and slut shaming.

After telling us that her column is not about abortion, then proceeding with what I guess she expects her audience to view as some sort of ironic humor by writing a paragraph-long screed against abortion rights, Parker gets to her real target: The fact that on occasion she can identify a Democrat who says stupid or sexist things about women. As if we needed to be told? Needless to say, though, she's nutpicking -- selecting isolated examples of people saying silly things -- and conflating them with her party's problem, the fact that its politicians have established a clear pattern of making sexist comments -- one that makes columnists like, you know, Kathleen Parker regret that Republicans have not yet learned to talk to women.

Parker reminds us in her column that Bill Maher, a left-leaning comedian who is not a Democrat but is presently supporting the Democratic Party, is a sexist.

Sarah Palin, whose potential vice presidency I politely opposed for legitimate reasons that are now widely embraced, has been outrageously abused in the vilest terms — by Maher among others — and left to twist in the wind.

Twist in the wind? Try "laugh all the way to the bank." So why bring Bill Maher, a man she sees as inclined to make vile, sexist remarks, into the column at all? Because he offers a useful distraction from domestic concerns:

On the latter’s offense, and the silliness of the so-called war in general, I defer to Bill Maher, who recently chastised liberals for their selective outrage regarding women’s rights.

“We hear a lot about the Republican ‘war on women.’ It’s not cool Rush Limbaugh called somebody a slut. Okay,” said Maher. “But Saudi women can’t vote, or drive, or hold a job or leave the house without a man. Overwhelming majorities in every Muslim country say a wife is always obliged to obey her husband. That all seems like a bigger issue than evangelical Christian bakeries refusing to make gay wedding cakes.”

One could easily turn that around -- why is Parker obsessing over whether the Republicans are fairly being accused of a war on women, when so-called honor killings occur in parts of the world, and where rape victims can even be killed in the name of protecting the honor of their families? If Parker were better at logical thinking, she might realize that it is possible to be opposed to discrimination against women at home and abroad. If she were a better thinker she might realize that U.S. voters have a better chance of effecting policy change in this country than they do of convincing Saudi Arabia to grant women full equality. On an international scale, the mistreatment of women in many other nations is a larger issue than the mistreatment of women in the U.S., but when you live in the U.S. you actually are allowed to comment upon and even prioritize domestic policy concerns, as well as those issues that you could actually affect through your speech and votes.

Parker then moves on to her penultimate attack -- the statement of a single Democratic politician about his female opponent,

A more recent example of a war-on-women event occurred in Virginia’s closely watched congressional race between Democrat John Foust and Republican Barbara Comstock. This time it was a Democratic male attacking a Republican female in, shall we say, the most clueless of terms. Lacking facts or finesse, Foust mused to an audience that Comstock hadn’t ever held a “real job.”

Meaning, what, that she’s just a mom?

Probably not. It sounds like an echo of Republican attacks on President Obama during his first campaign. I don't recall that Kathleen Parker leapt to Obama's defense, "How dare my party suggest that being a father isn't a 'real job'" -- recall the column linked above where Parker claimed deep concern over the marginalization of fathers. I'm not sure that Parker mouthed those exact words about Obama, but she certainly embraced the sentiment:

The faith of the American people may not have been misplaced in Obama. But the young senator from Illinois became a president overnight, before he had time to gain the confidence and wisdom one earns through trials and errors.

Parker then whines,

Even if this were so, and it is not, why should Foust get a pass for such an ignorant, sexist remark? Is any Democratic male — even one who manages to insult while pandering — better than any Republican female? In my experience, a woman who can manage a household and juggle the needs of three children while obtaining a law degree from Georgetown University, as Comstock did, can run a corporation or a nation.

Foust is getting "a pass"? Then Kathleen Parker's criticism of him in a column published in one of the nation's leading newspapers and syndicated across the country must be a figment of my imagination.

Never mind Parker's criticism of Obama's lack of experience -- or, for that matter, her disdain for Sarah Palin, mother of five. When Parker is not pretending to be offended, and not pretending to be a sudden believer in the power of motherhood, she is actually willing to acknowledge that knowledge of foreign policy and economics are important, even in a vice president. Parker's able to recognize that it's possible for somebody to be a mother and to have held conventional employment or elected office on top of it, yet be woefully unprepared for a position of responsibility. Parker is simply playing the game of gotcha politics -- her concern is not actually the sentiment that the Republican candidate is unprepared -- a type of criticism she, herself, has made in different words -- it's that the Democrat used the wrong words and made himself a convenient target, whatever he in fact meant.

Parker takes a momentary step back from her feigned outrage to inform us,

[Comstock's] résumé includes such non-cookie­baking activities as serving as a senior aide to Rep. Frank Wolf, whose congressional seat she is pursuing. She currently is serving her third term in the Virginia House of Delegates, where she has advanced legislation to thwart human trafficking and supported several conservative positions related to health-care and tax reform.

It's interesting to me that Parker conveniently sidesteps the discussion of Comstock's actual job experience in order to pretend that her opponent's comment was intended to diminish motherhood, as opposed to being an echo of the refrain of the political right, that work in politics or as an elected official... or for a non-profit, or as a college professor, or for the government (other than the military)... doesn't count as a "real job". Parker could have pointed out the obvious -- that being a senior aid to a politician is a "real job", and that serving as an elected legislator is a "real job". But to acknowledge those facts would be to acknowledge the probability that the criticism of Comstock's résumé was an echo of the criticism directed at President Obama, not a commentary on motherhood.

Parker still isn't done....

When a Comstock ad recently called Foust’s comments “sexist, bizarre, insensitive, ignorant,” the 10th District’s Democratic Party tweeted, “If @barbaracomstock were a man, she’d be down 20 pts w women. Her record & policies are horrible for women.”

No, if Comstock were a man, she wouldn’t have to counter such slander.

Wait a second.... What's the "slander" here? If it's "slander" to suggest that a candidate who is a parent has never held a real job, the record is replete with that type of attack on President Obama. If it's that a candidate who has actually held real jobs has never held a real job, see also the résumé of President Obama. If it's that it's a slander to say that taking pro-life positions is bad for women, that's certainly not a criticism that has never been raised against a male candidate. What slander are we actually talking about?

Further, if we really want to get into scurrilous, unfair, gender- and implicitly race-based attacks on candidates, we need look no further than a columnist... whose name momentarily eludes me. No, wait, I remember now: Kathleen Parker, and her attacks on Obama as not being a full-blooded American, his being effeminate (or at least low on testosterone) for his supposed use of the passive voice, or of being a (pussy) cat.

At this point, surprisingly, Parker still finds room for another bad argument,

Virginia voters who oppose Comstock’s legislative record have a clear alternative. But if they cast their ballots for Foust, they’ll be electing a man whose disrespect toward women and the single job only women can do — mothering — is at least as offensive as Limbaugh’s name-calling.

Alas, those poor voters. They have no choice but to accept Parker's position that any suggestion that a candidate who happens to be a mother has never held a "real job" completely disqualifies her opponent from office, or they may as well be calling defenders of women's reproductive health "sluts". Don't bother looking for the logic -- it's not there.

When Society's Interests Clash With Religious Freedom

Via LOG, a "libertarian" argument positing that "Liberals Must Oppose the Contraception Mandate". The essay gets off to a weak start with an argument about coercion,

Defenders of the mandate insist that a woman’s reproductive liberty is significantly restricted if her employer refuses to pay for contraception. This is false. To see why, abstract. Is A’s liberty to X restricted if A’s boss refuses to pay for X? Especially when X is cheap and readily available? And when A can choose another employer? And when A’s government could provide X directly without using force against a voluntary association? No, no, no, and no.

The most obvious response to the author's position is that he is displaying tunnel vision. He sees this as an issue relating only to birth control and is concerned only with the rights of Roman Catholic employers. Given how thoroughly the religious liberty issue has been discussed, I am surprised that the author has yet to consider the bigger picture: The Christian Scientist employer who doesn't want insurance to cover eyeglasses, blood transfusions or antibiotics. The sincere fundamentalist of any number of religious faiths who doesn't want to pay for insurance that would allow health care practitioners to treat people of the opposite gender, or perhaps suffers genuine distress at the fact that hospitals aren't gender-segregated and wants to rule out any treatment of a person at a mixed-gender hospital. Why do we not respect their religious freedoms?

Once you accept that any form of comprehensive health insurance coverage is going to violate somebody's religious beliefs. If we're actually talking about sincerely held religious beliefs, the question of how many people hold the belief or how strongly other religious groups disagree with the belief should be irrelevant. Once we cross the threshold and decide that we can draw a line between where an employer's religious freedom ends and where an employee's right to comprehensive insurance coverage begins, there's absolutely no reason to privilege one set of religious beliefs over another.

We have drawn a line that favors religious organizations in relation to their actual religious operations, where they are free to engage in a broad range of actions in the name of religion that would be forbidden in the public sphere, but have found it reasonable to hold that when a religious organization extends its operations into the secular world that exemption no longer applies. That's a perfectly reasonable, defensible compromise position, balancing the rights of religious organizations with those of the secular world. If a religious organization find the accommodation of the secular world to be too onerous, it may choose to restrict its actions to the religious sphere and not be affected by the greater society's rules and norms. Or it can enter the secular world, but choose not to offer health insurance to its employees.

Further, from a logical standpoint, we're not actually talking about a boss being forced to pay for contraception. We're talking about an employer that is voluntarily offering health insurance as part of an employee's compensation (and getting a tax break as part of that bargain). A libertarian should, by all rights, object to an employer attempting to attach strings to how an employee spends her wages - what business is that of the employer's? Similarly, the fact that insurance covers birth control does not translate into every employee's obtaining and using birth control. It simply means that, along with other prescription medications, birth control is covered by the insurance plan and available to employees who want it on the same terms as other prescriptions covered by the plan.

It is rather attenuated to argue that the employer is somehow directly paying for benefits that are offered through the employee's health insurance plan. For that matter, by the very nature of insurance, it's not actually true. Let's say that we're talking about a five person store, with insurance costing $8,000 per year for the employees. One employee is diagnosed with a devastating cancer, resulting in a seven figure medical bill. Is the employer "paying" that bill by virtue of having provided health insurance as an employee benefit?

Also, unless the employer is offering health insurance with no copays or coinsurance, and is turning down all government subsidies, and ignoring the fact that any health insurance offered would remain part of the employee's compensation, why is it not at least as honest to say that any particular treatment or medication an employee receives is "paid for" by the employee, the government or by taxpayers? Why is it only the employer's contribution th. at counts?

The question of whether a medication or procedure is "cheap" or is available through other sources is a red herring. Many antibiotics are cheap. Many vaccinations are available through subsidized programs at a cost significantly below what would be billed to an insurance company. I could walk into an urgent care clinic and get a DPT shot for a relatively modest price. And if you're going to argue that the cost to the insured is so trivial that it makes no material difference to her that a particular medication or treatment is or is not covered by insurance, you need to drop the pretense that the impact of including that medication or treatment in an insurance plan is material to the cost of the plan.

Even in a good economy, the idea that an employee can simply quit and find a new job every time an insurance plan fails to cover a particular medical need is risible. As if jobs are simply "there for the taking", particularly at the bottom end of the job market where this is most likely to be an issue. As if a prospective employee has the opportunity to scrutinize the full range of benefits that may or may not be offered by any given employer's health insurance plan before being hired. As if employers and employees have anything approaching equality in their bargaining power.

Given that the criticism is offered as a libertarian argument, it's difficult to know what to make of the suggestion that instead of "using force against a voluntary association" the government should create it's own insurance program to offer medical benefits that offend any given employer's religious sensitivities. Should the government have responded to housing discrimination, some of which is defended by landlords as being predicated upon their genuine religious beliefs, by building rental housing and places of public accommodation across the nation, or at least those parts where certain minority groups found themselves excluded from the "free market"?

Really, though, if we ignore the history of the Affordable Care Act and pretend that some form of "public option" insurance or a national supplemental insurance plan are politically realistic, does the author expect that the debate would disappear? Would it not be far more realistic to anticipate that the same people who are objecting to the inclusion of birth control in employee health benefits would be complaining that their taxes are being used to provide birth control to women? Would it not be fair to infer that libertarians would decry any such insurance program as violative of libertarian principles, likely using the pretty much the same set of objections offered in objection to the inclusion of birth control in employment-based health plans?

The author concludes by conflating a tweet by Cher (yes, really, she is apparently his best example) to the effect that this is part of a "Right wing’s effort to Subjugate women", with the contention that "Authoritarians contend that if A refuses to buy X for B, that A uses coercion to prevent B from buying X." As should be needless to say, he's missing the forest for the trees. Cher's tweet is not about this particular issue, but is about her perception of a significant push by the religious right to subvert women's rights and equality. Also, it's a non sequitur to leap from Cher's statement to the implication that she is some sort of "authoritarian", let alone the hollow man argument that "authoritarians" as a class hold the belief described.

The author continues by taking issue with the very idea that there can be a "collective imperative" - the recognition of a collective interest of society - that outweighs the wishes of an individual. That's true to libertarianism, but is the sort of argument that helps explain libertarian's failure in the marketplace of ideas. Virtually everybody in a society recognizes that there are societal needs and imperatives that require individual compromise. Those who don't, frankly, haven't given the issue any amount of mature thought. You can find good thinkers who are heavily influenced by libertarianism in how they approach the question of where lines should be drawn, but you won't find a single good thinker who believes you can have a society that draws no lines. Note that the author presents out his rejection of "a collective imperative" as a fundamental truth, but if you reject the author's conceit - as pretty much every liberal or conservative is going to do - his argument collapses.

Again referring only to the Roman Catholic Church, the author complains,

[Harvard College administrator Erika] Christakis downplays the significance of the RCC’s religious liberty on the grounds that people have to do things they don’t like all the time. But she fails to distinguish between coercing people into doing things they dislike and forcing them to engage in serious immorality.

Again, nobody is forcing a religious organization to enter the secular marketplace. If a religion is so uncomfortable with the secular world that it chooses to restrict its operations to the purely religious, it has that right. And within that sphere it can discriminate against prospective employees of different faiths, use its bona fide religious beliefs to engage in race and gender discrimination, and refuse to offer insurance coverage for medications and treatments it finds objectionable. We were previously asked to pretend that employees have complete freedom to pick and choose employers that offer the full set of health benefits they desire, with no externalities that influence their employment opportunities or choices. Now we're to pretend that religious organizations have no choice but to enter secular markets in which their religious beliefs will be tested.

Also, the measure of what constitutes "serious immorality" varies by religion. By focusing solely upon one issue and one church, it's easy to pretend that this is a minor issue and that ceding to the beliefs of a religious organization imposes no significant cost upon either society or the women affected by the policy. But if you are sincere in the argument that this is a matter of religious freedom, and are sincere in the belief that society has no interest that can be asserted, let alone one that can overcome a religious belief, you will cause significant hardship to certain members of society, and will marginalize other individuals and groups. It's libertarianism in action, certainly, but anathematic to a healthy, inclusive society.

The author objects to the notion that an employer's religious-based choice not to offer coverage for contraception constitutes the imposition of its religious values on its employees. The author engages in weak manning here, seeking out an obscure argument that's easy to challenge in lieu of addressing the larger issues. But it is fair to observe that you can reach a threshold in a society at which point a gender or minority group can be deprived of basic rights and liberties by virtue of the majority's exercise of its religious beliefs. While it is fair to focus on the tree - that it's not per se coercive for an employer to offer an insurance plan that does not include contraception - when you take off your blinders and start considering the full range of religions and religious beliefs you can easily see how the author's argument supports the very coercion he contends does not exist in this narrow context.

The author concludes again by missing the forest for the trees, arguing that if it's acceptable for employers to discriminate based upon their religious beliefs within the context of their religious operations, it should be equally legitimate for them to discriminate within the context of their secular operations. Needless to say, the case law that supports the former position does not support the latter.

The LOG author poses the question of,

...whether it is within the bounds of acceptable discourse to say that liberals must oppose something that most actual liberals fail to oppose. I of course do think so.

Of course it is within the bounds of acceptable discourse to encourage people to reconsider their beliefs - to suggest that if they believe X, Y, and Z, it should follow that they believe W. But let's just say, there's a huge gulf between the implication that somebody has not thought through their position or is being hypocritical, and making the case that they are in fact being inconsistent or hypocritical. And it is more than fair to point out that in this context, the case was not made. Heck, the author can't even make up his mind whether he's talking about liberals or authoritarians, and it's not clear that he is attaching any greater meaning to either term than "people who disagree with me".

There Romney Goes Again

Via David Kurtz, Romney is once again on the defensive over what you would think would be a non-issue.

About an hour ago, a reporter for a cable-only TV news station in Ohio tweeted that Mitt Romney has told him in a yet-to-air interview that he opposed the Blunt amendment, which would allow employers to refuse to provide health insurance policies that cover contraception and other matters of conscience. Opposition to the Blunt amendment by Romney would mark a sharp break from the current orthodoxy of national Republicans, but it’s not entirely clear yet what Romney said.... [T]he campaign is saying Romney in fact supports the Blunt amendment.

Now it may be true that the tape will show that Romney is consistent in his support for the Blunt amendment, but this story has traction because nobody knows when Romney is sincere - when he's telling the truth, when he's flip-flopping, or when he's outright lying. Well, maybe Romney knows, but sometimes I'm not so certain even of that.

The other interesting aspect, though, is how Romney has hurt his credibility by claiming to pass every Republican litmus test, no matter that he is on the record at one point or another taking something close to an opposite stance on pretty much every litmus test issue. Romney seems to buy into the theory that he can run to the right in the primary, then pull back to a more centrist stance in the general election. I think that was more true in the past, before the ease of videotaping and the rapid online distribution of video clips highlighting contradictions, but I'll agree that at some level it's not an unreasonable assumption. People who vote in primaries tend to be more polemic than those who do not, but you need the larger population of voters to support you once you're nominated.

But here's Romney's miscalculation: Running to the right has not helped him, because the people in the "Can't we find anybody but Romney" camp don't trust him. There are few voters outside of the social conservative camp that is currently hoping for a Santorum victory who will care that Romney supports the Blunt amendment, but there are plenty of moderate Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who support insurance coverage for birth control, or who get their birth control through employer-sponsored health insurance. Romney's position certainly can't help him with moderate female voters - would you trust him to do anything to protect women's rights?

Had Romney run as an honest politician, one who ran a center-right campaign with a moderate tone on social conservatism, would his present position be materially different? Even if we assume that his flip-flops on socially conservative issues, the ones that coincidentally lead to Romney's near-perfect alignment with the latest opinion polls of likely primary voters, he has demonstrated that perception is more important than reality. The religious right believes he's a moderate Republican who is possibly somewhat progressive on social issues. Republican-leaning independents and conservative Democrats hope that he's a moderate Republican who is possibly somewhat progressive on social issues. But pretty much everybody thinks he's lying.

By running as the person everybody hopes or believes him to be, he might not only have avoided looking like a mendacious demagogue, he might have worn out the opposition - once the first few woefully inadequate opponents had their day in the sun and it was clear that Romney was going to defeat them despite his admittedly socially moderate views, I suspect that it would have taken the wind out of the anti-Romney movement. But even if I'm wrong, it's difficult for me to see how he would be harmed by professing positions on the issues that key voter blocks believe he holds and being viewed as principled, as opposed to taking positions that both alienate the center and make him look habitually dishonest.

Great Britain: Land of the Virgin Birth

Despite opening with a trite anecdote, a British MP gets of to a reasonable start on the issue of teen pregnancy:

Many (though not all) teenage girls do not become pregnant accidentally because of ignorance, because of a lack of understanding of how their bodies work. They become pregnant because they have absolutely no ambition for themselves. They have been indoctrinated with the lie that they'll never amount to anything, and have fulfilled that prophesy by making no effort to achieve any qualification. Very often they live with parents (or a parent) who have no jobs themselves, who are setting the example of benefit dependency for all their offspring.

Such young women see parenthood as one way of achieving a level of independence and self-worth. And they're right, because that's more or less what they get: a flat and therefore some privacy, an income for the first time in their lives. And in fact, many of them make a decent job of parenthood despite the awful circumstances. But even they are nevertheless rearing the next generation in an environment where the main adult isn't working, but claiming.

He then describes how despite his own relative poverty as a child, his parents served as role models for a strong work ethic. So it would seem that the solution to this problem would be to help girls in impoverished communities better understand and achieve their options, or perhaps to make teen parenthood a less easy path to independence. (The problem there, the other paths tend to be more expensive in the short-term than cutting a new welfare check.)

Apparently not.

People shouldn't be ashamed of their circumstances, but neither should we avoid making value judgments about others' choices, especially when those choices result in a greater burden on the state, and lead to the continuation of the underclass.

Teenage girls shouldn't be having underage sex. Why? Because it's wrong.

Teenage girls shouldn't choose to have babies as an alternative to getting an education and a career. Why? Because it's wrong.

Parents shouldn't teach their children that a lifetime on benefits is attractive or even acceptable. Why? Because it's wrong.

(Please assume all the usual caveats: some people have no choice but to claim benefits, lots of single parents do a great job, etc.)

I must have missed something - how do all of these teenage girls get pregnant? The author says teenage girls become "pregnant because they have absolutely no ambition for themselves", but I nonetheless suspect that somewhere along the line these pregnancies involve sex acts. With boys and men. Does the author's moral approbation truly extend only to girls?

Honestly, even if we could work up a sufficient amount of society outrage at teen mothers, or even teen parents, I don't think it will do anything to eliminate the problem. Teen pregnancy rates were pretty high in the early 20th century, the big difference being that more babies were adopted and more young parents-to-be ended up being pressed into marriage. If the issue is preventing teen pregnancy, as opposed to making it less visible, maybe the focus truly should be on the economics, and upon incurring the additional expense to provide teen mothers who wished to no longer live at home, but could not afford to live independently, with a structured environment where they could learn parenting skills and complete their educations.

Meanwhile, there actually is compelling evidence that with better sex education and better availability of birth control, teen pregnancies will drop significantly.