Obama: Statutory Rape = Dumb Mistake

Scott at Power Line has more on Obama’s expansion of his “punished with a baby” remarks.

Why might Obama consider it “a mistake” for his 12-year-old daughter to have unprotected sex and to get pregnant? Not because at age 12 she is incapable of consent. Not because a child needs both a father and a mother. Not because marriage should be part of the picture. Of course not. Rather, in the gospel according to Barack “statistically we know 12- or 13- year-olds who are having children are much more likely to be impoverished, are much more likely to have health problems, are much more likely to have trouble raising that child.”

I went back to the transcript because the first thing that jumped out at me was “mistake” and “12-year-old” where unprotected sex was concerned. That’s not what he meant, right? As Scott points out, a twelve year old is incapable of legal consent.

I’m not naive about this; I know that children that age voluntarily have sex. My adopted sister got pregnant at age 12. While in the foster care system before my parents adopted her, she got pregnant by her boyfriend who I believe was 18 upon the birth of the baby. He was not prosecuted, but he should have been. Any seventeen year old having sex with a twelve year old should be prosecuted. Just because a twelve year old willingly has sex doesn’t make it right, legal, appropriate or any number of other things. It’s not a dumb mistake. It’s rape. And any adult ought to be able to recognize that simple fact.

MEACHAM: Sir, in an earlier occasion in…

(APPLAUSE)

… an earlier occasion in talking about your own daughters and talking about sex education and contraception, you said that you would not want your daughter “punished with a baby” if she made a mistake, that you would teach values and morals, but if something were to happen. The phrase “punished with a baby” was jarring to a number of people. Could you explain what you meant by that?

OBAMA: Well, keep in mind, on that same day, I said children are miracles, and so I think it’s important not to parse my words too carefully here. What I was saying was that my daughters are 9 and 6.

(LAUGHTER)

And so if, at the age of 12 or 13, they made what I would consider to be a mistake, in having sex or unprotected sex, and ended up getting pregnant — I think that statistically we know 12- or 13- year-olds who are having children are much more likely to be impoverished, are much more likely to have health problems, are much more likely to have trouble raising that child.

And so all I meant was we want to prevent teen pregnancies. And what we don’t want to do is to be blind to the possibility that kids will screw up, just like, surprisingly enough, we as adults screw up sometimes.

And, you know, we should factor in the possibility that they make mistakes in our approach to dealing with STDs, which is what I was being asked about at the time.

And we want to make sure that, even as we are teaching responsible sexuality and we are teaching abstinence to children, that we are also making sure that they’ve got, you know, enough understanding about contraception that they don’t end up having much more severe problems because of a dumb mistake.

CNN.com – Transcripts