Lauren Boebert will be a grandmother at 36. This is what conservatives want for us | Arwa Mahdawi

Congratulations to Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert who is becoming a grandma at the tender age of 36. Speaking at a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Moms for America event on Tuesday, the Colorado congresswoman shared the news that her 17-year-old son is expecting a baby with his teenage girlfriend in April.

Boebert is famous for her far-right views and for stunts like putting out an advert explaining why she’s going to carry a gun in Congress. In 2021 she also posted an infamous Christmas card photo of her four sons, two of whom are very young, brandishing rifles in front of a Christmas tree. She is, in short, an incorrigible attention-seeker who spends more time stoking culture wars than she does producing legislation. That said, she and her children are obviously entitled to a private life. I want to stress that the only reason her growing family is at all newsworthy is because Boebert decided to turn a private affair into a big public statement about how the rest of us should live.

Speaking at the CPAC event, the extremely anti-abortion Boebert said that her biggest fear was whether her son and his partner “would choose life”. When they did, she was so proud that she decided to turn them into a parable about rural family values.

“There’s something special about rural conservative communities,” Boebert effused. “They value life. If you look at teen pregnancy rates throughout the nation, well, they’re the same, [in] rural and urban areas. However, abortion rates are higher in urban areas. Teen moms’ rates are higher in rural conservative areas, because they understand the preciousness of a life that it’s about to be born.”

Well, perhaps that’s one reason teenage mothers are more prevalent in rural areas. Perhaps another reason is that the teenage girls are unable to access a safe and legal abortion and are forced to give birth when they’re unprepared to be parents. Even before Roe v Wade was overturned it was difficult and expensive for rural Americans to access abortion services. According to data analyzed by the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute, for example, 20% of US women in 2014 already had to travel at least 42 miles to access abortion services. Meanwhile women living in rural counties in Montana, Texas, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas had to travel more than 180 miles. Now that Roe has been overturned, Bloomberg estimates that Americans in 26 states will have to travel 552 miles to get an abortion Five hundred and fifty-two miles!

This shouldn’t need to be said in 2023, but forcing teenagers to become parents isn’t good for the teenagers, the baby or society in general. Far too often it means the mother having to give up her education. According to the CDC, for example, “Only about 50% of teen mothers receive a high school diploma by 22 years of age, whereas approximately 90% of women who do not give birth during adolescence graduate from high school.” Boebert herself became a mum when she was 17 and ended up dropping out of high school. The CDC also notes that the “children of teenage mothers are more likely to have lower school achievement and to drop out of high school, have more health problems, be incarcerated at some time during adolescence, give birth as a teenager, and face unemployment as a young adult”.

Access to abortion is one way to reduce teenage pregnancies. Quality sexual health education in schools is another. Boebert, of course, is against both. At another CPAC event, Boebert said she wants to cut funding for “comprehensive sex ed”, stating it shouldn’t be taught to “any student in a public school”. She’s obviously not the only Republican with this view, conservatives have been increasingly attacking sexual education in schools in recent years and pushing abstinence-only programs. It won’t surprise you to hear that a wealth of evidence shows that abstinence-only programs don’t work. Rather, they’re a great way to generate a lot more 36-year-old grandmothers.

Only 14 countries have full equal rights for women, says World Bank Report

Those countries? Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands. The US, meanwhile, ranks below countries like Peru and Albania. That’s largely because of laws around parental leave, equal pay and equal pensions.

Artwork referring to abortion removed from Idaho public college exhibition

This censorship is brought to you by the same people who like to talk about “cancel culture” and “free speech”.

Shania Twain says the country music industry has regressed for women artists

“As I went along, I could see the progress,” Twain told CNBC. “But I feel that since then, the industry has regressed, I feel it’s more difficult for women to find space to find room.” Twain said there were fewer female artists emerging in country music than before.

Honduras’s first female leader legalizes morning-after pill

President Xiomara Castro has overturned a 13-year ban on the emergency contraceptive via executive order.

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Biden administration grants US visa to extremist Israeli minister who called for a Palestinian town to be wiped out

“I think the village of Hawara needs to be wiped out,” Bezalel Smotrich said after mobs of Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian town two weeks ago in what one Israeli military commander called a “pogrom”. “I think the state of Israel should do it,” he added. After he said all that the Biden administration is still allowing him into the country. Just another example of how Palestinian lives simply do not matter to the US.

Catholic group spent millions on app data that tracked gay priests

Expect a lot more of this sort of surveillance in the future.

Thousands of Iranian schoolgirls appear to have suffered ‘mild poison’ attacks

It’s not entirely clear what is happening or who is behind the attacks but there are suspicions that extremists may be trying to stop girls getting an education. Meanwhile officials from Iran’s education department blame “mass hysteria”. On Tuesday Iran announced the first arrests in connection to the poisonings but didn’t give any details about the suspects.

Berlin to let women swim topless at public swimming pools

This comes after legal action by a woman who was kicked out of an open-air pool for sunbathing topless and argued it was a form of discrimination since men can be topless.

Last week saw news about “narco cat”: a tattooed hairless cat that was rescued from a Mexican prison. This week “cocaine cat” is making headlines. An African serval cat leapt out of a car in Cincinnati and escaped after its unscrupulous owner was pulled over at a traffic stop. After the cat was captured, cocaine was found in its system. Now it’s going to live at the Cincinnati Zoo. Officials are apparently not pursuing charges against the owner despite the fact the person had a wild animal and let it ingest cocaine. I guess the US police need to conserve their resources to lock up women having abortions instead.