Kudos for encouraging teens not to have sex, though her earlier comments put a considerable ding in her credibility on this statement.  Yes, raising a child is hard work.  I'm more than twice her age and have an incredible wife that partners with me in raising our kids - and it's still a ton of work.  I can't imagine how an 18-year old does it alone.  Or a 30-year does it alone.  It's not a job that's meant to be done alone.  Some do it, because they have to.  It's good to hear someone honestly talking about the work involved.

However, this is not a very good argument for teen abstinence.  If raising a child was easy, would Bristol be encouraging her peers to go out and have sex as much as they want?  Possibly - but I sure hope not.

Bristol and her public relations advisor are missing the strongest argument from experience that Bristol could make.  And that is, that unless you believe that sex is something that's ok to have with pretty much anybody you feel like - and unless you're willing to shoulder the repercussions of your actions alone - teens shouldn't be having sex.  Why?  Because the ability to identify love is a tricky thing at any age - and teens have far less experience with their own emotions and interacting with other people to get a good read on whether it's love or just infatuation.

Evidence of this in Bristol's life?  Bristol and the father are no longer together.

Bristol apparently loved her baby's father at some point - or else she was just having sex with him because it was fun.  Either you want your partner to be your partner for life, or you don't have any such notions and you're simply enjoying the physical sensations of intimacy without the emotional commitments that take the act to a whole new level.  And as Bristol and her baby poignantly demonstrate, there are problems with either assuming that what you have with another person is a lifelong love, or in assuming that there aren't really good reasons for not treating sex the same way you treat drinking a soda or enjoy a really tasty pizza.  Assuming it's love, there are lots of opportunities for a girl/boy/woman/man to be misled about what they think is love.  Some are intentional misleadings by the other person just to get what they want.  Some are unintentional misleadings by not really thinking things through very carefully, by trusting the bizarre image of love that movies and television are successfully selling - but which in no way mirrors reality.

What protection does a girl, or a woman, or a boy, or a man have from this sort of abuse of the concept of love?  

Marriage.

If you want to know that someone is dead serious about being with you for life, and not just for the night or a few weeks or months or until something better comes along, the best way of ensuring that is marriage.  Sure, it's no guarantee.  But it's the only institution that offers some sort of protection, that offers some sort of quantifiable hope that what is going on is really love, and not just expedience.  As lightly as the more liberal elements of our culture want to treat marriage, it's still a powerful concept that few people are going to enter into casually - for the legal and financial difficulties as much as anything else.

A strong defense of the institution of marriage, and a strong reminder to teens that they are vulnerable prey to their own emotions and the emotions of others ought to be the message that Bristol is conveying.  If her words don't say it, her life certainly does.