Centerfield

Notice the father was allowed to participate.

This is a big reason why I'm stauncly pro-choice. When our culture starts treating the fathers exactly the same way as the mothers, including requiring child support payments, and if he's a minor, forcing his parents to pay, then maybe I'll pay more attention to the pro-life view.

Posted by: tim at May 19, 2005 11:57 AM

What tim said. It's hard enough to be a pregnant student without the school throwing more roadblocks in her way. I think the pro-life people should hold her up as an example: STUDENT CHOOSES LIFE!

Posted by: Blue Jean at May 19, 2005 12:06 PM

The fact that the boyfriend/future father was allowed to march shows the sexism that exists within the Catholic Church.

Posted by: AR at May 19, 2005 12:34 PM

Wow! Way to take an interesting story about what I consider to be a heroic event and twist into an argument on abortion. Couldn't this girl also be a testament for those who argue that life should be protected?

Posted by: Mathew at May 19, 2005 12:38 PM

I'm pro-choice, but believe the Alysha Cosby and the father of her child should have not participated in the ceremony. Her defiance was out of line in my opinion.

Posted by: molotov at May 19, 2005 12:50 PM

If it's not out-of-line, it's not really defiance.

Matt, I'm not seeing the twist, only the existing irony. Presumedly this girl "chose life," and was being punished despite this. Where's the forgiveness, where's the acknowledgement that this girl has chosen the hard road of young parenthood over the easy choice of opting out via abortion? Seems to me it's the Catholic Church that's hoist by its OWN petard. No twisting necessary. They chose to single out and punish the woman.

Posted by: bk at May 19, 2005 01:11 PM

Here's the thing. Under Catholic doctrine you don't get a lot of credit just for not commiting a mortal sin (murder of an unborn child). So there is no reason in the church's doctrine to praise the girl or cut her some slack because she "chose life". From the viewpoint of fundamental Catholic believe, what you suggest is equivalent to asking to celebrate the armed robber because he didn't actually kill anybody.

Personally, I'm all for bringing back a little shame and embarassment as a tool to encourage social conformity. A little more shame and condemnation will help discourage (not eliminate, but reduce) teenagers having babies of their own. The girl did a number of things she really shouldn't have done. Now, I don't want to deny her an education or lock her up or anything like that, but a private, religiously-oriented school saying that it is not going to let her walk across stage because she flouted several church teachings is not that out of line, I don't think.

I agree that is is extremely hypocritical to allow the father to participate, though. His sins are just as great as hers.

And Tim, the law does require the father to pay child support. I don't know whether Alabama law requires his parents to pay if he can't, though.

Posted by: PatHMV at May 19, 2005 01:33 PM

So now it's "praise" if you just let the girl participate in a graduation? She apparently earned the credits, but the heck with that.

And I see you wrote two paragraphs about the girl's bhavioral shortcomings before even bringing up the father's role and subsequent treatment.

While the law says the father is to pay child support, if this girl is typical, she isn't getting much, if any at all.

I make no apologies for tying this issue to abortion. The girl is punished for getting pregnant. Pat makes it clear she should be publicly shamed. Nothing is said about shaming the boy. Lots of girls are going to want to end a pregnancy once they realize the Pats of this world probably represent the prevailing view.

Posted by: tim at May 19, 2005 02:18 PM

So there is no reason in the church's doctrine to praise the girl or cut her some slack because she "chose life".
Hmm, not sure. If they want, they can condemn having premarital sex and yet also praise choosing life. I'm ok if they don't cut her slack specifically, but from the Catholic view, choosing life is desirable. What bother sme is that I don't see the punishment as fitting the sin. I could see the school curtailing other privileges. But I don't think graduation is a privilege in the same sense. She did the coursework, she earned the right to graduate. Now if the school were making efforts to identify and withhold graduation participation from all children who were having premarital sex, I might feel differently. But they singled out one unlucky girl.

Personally, I'm all for bringing back a little shame and embarassment as a tool to encourage social conformity.
I'll grant that. I don't entirely disagree. I don't know about encouraging conformity, but shame isn't necessarily a bad thing.

A little more shame and condemnation will help discourage (not eliminate, but reduce) teenagers having babies of their own.
Right, but the irony is that it might discourage them enough that they'd have an abortion. Which is the point.: be careful what you incentivize.

Posted by: bk at May 19, 2005 02:22 PM

"While the law says the father is to pay child support, if this girl is typical, she isn't getting much, if any at all."

Tim, I don't know where this statement came from, but that's a pretty broad statement. There's a lot of Dad's out there who just might disagree. We don't have to paint with a broad brush here.

Posted by: AR at May 19, 2005 02:22 PM

As to the question of whether or not she flouted school policy....

If the school required the expentant father to sit out the ceremony as well, I would say that the school was well within its moral rights. (Of course, as a private school, it does not appear to have violated her rights.) However, by displaying a double standard for male "sinners" vs. female "sinners," the school simply fed into the ongoing Catholic stereotype of sexism.

Posted by: AR at May 19, 2005 02:26 PM

The fact that I mentioned the father last in no way means I don't believe in holding him equally accountable. I didn't elaborate on that point because I agree with you entirely on the subject and saw no need to elaborate past what you had said.

And the school is not withholding her diploma. She is in fact now a graduate of the high school. They just refused to allow her to participate in the public ceremony of graduation. She is getting the diploma that she earned. As the article noted, a guidance counselor delivered her degree to her house earlier on graduation day.

You really need to understand Catholic teachings on this point. She does NOT have a moral right to choose abortion any more than you have a moral right to choose to kill your new-born baby. In the eyes of the Church (and, according to the Church, God), abortion is a violation of the Commandment, Thou Shalt Not Kill. Do you reward your 5 year old every day he doesn't bite a schoolmate or beat the family pet? I'll say it again... do we cut slack to the armed robber just because he didn't kill everybody? From a moral perspective, the only choice really involved here was when the girl and the father chose to engage in premarital sex.

That's certainly an understandable urge, and one that is hard to resist. A little more shame, official disapproval, and hopefully peer pressure against the consequences of such behavior will, I believe, help to reduce the number of children who succumb to that urge.

You say "be careful what you incentivize". What is the alternative? Do we decide that all incentives must only be aimed at the worst sins, and just ignore the lesser ones? Hey, let's be grateful the kids didn't kill the teacher today! At least they showed up to class, let's not disincentivize attendance by making them work too hard. That way lies our current school system.

Posted by: PatHMV at May 19, 2005 02:57 PM

Oh, I understand catholic teachings. I understand their position, too.

Again, the punishment could have been less severe, and if so might have avoided the transparent display of irony that I pointed out. And as we agree, the policy could have been more consistently applied. In which case, they'd look like they were punishing behavior, and not appearance.

A little more shame, official disapproval, and hopefully peer pressure against the consequences of such behavior will, I believe, help to reduce the number of children who succumb to that urge.

Possibly. Or maybe it leads to increased rejection of an institution that appears to be capriciously applying its authoritarian guidlines. The real questions are how much "official disapproval" works, and how much it works, and who does it work on? I think my point remains valid, that pushing too much along these lines can have adverse affects. Numerous experiments into punishment have shown this to be so. Surely, as someone who apparently has a legal background, you understand the principle of "judiciousness."

In this case, I already spoke of an alternative, of applying less severe restrictions upon the student's privileges, and allowing her to be included in graduation ceremonies. And if not, making sure that all efforts were made to ensure that ALL those who engaged in the perceived sin be precluded from participating in the graduation ceremony. The sin is premarital sex, not pregnancy, right?

If it's a really important principle, I'm sure they've made great advancements in chastity belt technology in the past several centuries.

And even presuming perfect correctness and judiciousness in the application of the school's policy, I STILL applaud the girl for her couragous defiance of a powerful authoritarian institution. Oh, to have been a fly on THAT wall.

Posted by: bk at May 19, 2005 03:45 PM

Was I the only one who read this part of the article.....

"Cosby was told in March that she could no longer attend school because of safety concerns, and her name was not listed in the graduation program."

Why are you all making the assumption that the school was trying to punish or shame her...rather then simply cover it's own arse in case pregnant lady trips on her way upto the podium and decides to file a lawsuit?

Posted by: cengel at May 19, 2005 04:07 PM

I swore to myself I would never get involved in an abortion discussion on one of these threads. But I violated my own oath. I deserve the responses I get for venturing into this discussion.

I'm a reformed Catholic. That means I don't go. I have no desire for my daughters to be raised in the church either. Too much hypocrisy. Just my opinion. I still liked Pope JPII even though I disagreed with his views on church doctrine. He won in the end; I walked away from the church.

Perhaps I did paint with a too broad cloth. I know men my age saddled with big child support payments while the women live with a sugar daddy. But from personal experience, that's the exception, not the rule. Hence the term "deadbeat dads".

This is a real issue to me. I have two adolescent daughters. My wife and I keep a pretty tight rein on their extracurricular activities. If one of them winds up pregnant we'll be extremely disappointed and they will definitely know it. They know it now; we've had many discussions.

But we won't punish them by shaming. They will have gone through enough. And if they want an abortion, we'll support that choice. It isn't murder. For those who disagree, remember the bumper sticker: Don't like abortion? Don't get one.

The one thing I'm pretty sure of, if one of my kids does get pregnant at 16, the father will more than likely run for the hills at the first opportunity.

Posted by: tim at May 19, 2005 05:00 PM

A few comments from Oberon:

1. If it's not out-of-line, it's not really defiance.

Zing!!!

2. Why are you all making the assumption that the school was trying to punish or shame her...rather then simply cover it's own arse in case pregnant lady trips on her way upto the podium and decides to file a lawsuit?

Because the former is believable, the latter is ridiculous (OTOH, our schools do ridiculous things all the time...)

3. Would it matter to anybody if Miss Cosby is 18 - an adult?

Posted by: Oberon at May 19, 2005 05:24 PM

The one thing I'm pretty sure of, if one of my kids does get pregnant at 16, the father will more than likely run for the hills at the first opportunity.

And he better run faster than you? :-) (I still remember my girlfriend's father from high school--"You WILL treat my daughter with respect. I've got a shovel and a shotgun. It's a big damn state. LOTS of empty fields out there.")

I find the difference between comments from parents and non-parents interesting. As with Tim, it's a real issue to me as well. It quits being an intellectual exercise when you have daughters.

Posted by: Tully at May 19, 2005 06:26 PM

Then, too, I think one needs to make allowances for the fact that "doing the right thing" is often fraught with difficulties.

Let's go back, for example, to the time Lincoln was a store clerk, and he accidentally shortchanged a customer a few pennies. He didn't discover the error until he was balancing the books for the night. He ended up trudging miles to the woman's house to give her the pennies back.

Now, you can say "Well, so what? Abe shouldn't be expecting praise for doing what he was supposed to. If he was really a great man, he wouldn't have made the error in the first place."

Me, I say that everyone makes mistakes. To correct them, regardless of the difficulties and costs involved, is an admirable thing to do. But then again, I'm just a mushy minded liberal. ;-)

Posted by: Blue Jean at May 19, 2005 11:08 PM

I'm going to agree with Pat on this one b/c it WAS A CATHOLIC SCHOOL. She got what she earned- the diploma. But I can't fault the school for not wanting to publically acknowledge her b/c she broke a big teaching of the Church. She knew the rules, she broke them. If her family didn't agree with the rules...there are other schools. Now, I agree with all the commentators who correctly say the father should have suffered the same punishment as her, though I understand why he didn't- because her moral lapse is a little more obvious, and they didn't want that negative example before the kids.
As for congratulating her for choosing life...her avoiding breaking a second commandment doesn't make breaking the first one better, any more than my breaking a window in the basement when I was a kid was better cause when my parents discovered it I didn't lie. I still broke the window.

Posted by: stephanie wendelken at May 20, 2005 01:30 PM

But I can't fault the school for not wanting to publically acknowledge her b/c she broke a big teaching of the Church. She knew the rules, she broke them. If her family didn't agree with the rules...there are other schools.

Do you mean to say she "obviously" broke a teaching of the school. The "broken rule" is sex out of wedlock. She's pregnant so she must have broken that rule but how many other graduates broke the rule without the evidence.

If I assume this story is just about the sex angle (and that's a big if) then I have a hard time with a Christian/Catholic institution saying "sorry you're a sinner, you can't be here". Hey, every one of those graduates was and is a sinner.

Posted by: c3 at May 22, 2005 11:44 AM