John Edwards: Could He Not Have Known About Contraception?

Last week, I blogged about Peter Orzag and the D.C. media scramble about what the headlines called his "love child."

Several people felt that I hadn't been hard enough on out of wedlock pregnancies. I countered that there was a major difference between a young, unemployed, poor single parent and the life circumstances of Mr. Orzag's partner.

I had promised I'd write more about out of wedlock pregnancies, and then the disaster in Haiti happened.

I started thinking about these issues again as we heard the announcement that John Edwards was indeed the father of his mistress's toddler.

I wrote more about it for Huffington Post earlier today: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-debra-haffner/john-edwards-you-did-know_b_431546.html

The bottom line for me is not a new public health campaign against out of wedlock births -- but one against unplanned pregnancies. It is unfathomable to me how men like Orzag and Edwards put themselves and their partners at risk of an unplanned pregnancy. Surely they know about contraception and condoms. What were they thinking? (Or it's clear what they were NOT thinking.)

As I've written here before, surely, despite differences about abortion, we can all agree that it is precisely because life and parenthood are so precious, that they should never begin carelessly.

Especially by people who know better.