WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican John McCain, whose running mate disclosed that her unmarried 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, has opposed proposals to spend federal money on teen-pregnancy prevention programs and voted to require poor teen mothers to stay in school or lose their benefits.
And? John McCain doesn’t much support federal funding for contraception/sex-ed programs. Neither does Sarah Palin. The fact that Gov. Palin’s daughter is pregnant is of no relevance whatsoever to those facts. This is a risible stretch on the part of the Associated Press. There are lots of people who’ve had cancer who don’t think funding cancer research is something the federal government should be doing; there are people who’ve been hungry who don’t support food stamps; there are people who have probably benefited from affirmative action who don’t believe that racial preferences are a good idea; there are people with family in Iraq who support the war and there are people with family in Iraq who are opposed to the war. Connections of the sort the AP wishes to establish here are usually meaningless and almost always politically directed, hoping to attach some faint odor of hypocrisy to a candidate’s stand on a particular issue.
More people should take a cue from Don Boudreaux (whose path last crossed mine in this story on adoption). From Prof. Boudreaux:
Here’s a letter that I sent today to the Director of the Coalition for Pulmonary Fibrosis:
Dear Sir or Madam:
I received your e-mail encouraging me to ask my representatives in Congress to vote for H.R. 6567, which would “increase federal research funding for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.”
Even though in March IPF killed my dear mother, I cannot join your crusade for more taxpayer funding to fight this horrible disease.… being touched tragically by that disease gives me no moral claim to have Congress, in my name, take resources from other people. I can, and do, ask people to voluntarily fund IPF research. I cannot, and will not, support any effort to force them to do so.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
The implicit AP standard — that politicians should bend the government to the ends of people who share their personal problems and challenges — is an open invitation for Congress to get involved in throwing money at each and every one of the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. (And that is not a consummation devoutly to be wished.) Biography is not policy.