Forget for a moment all the important topics churned up by the Palin pregnancy story (topics like reproductive freedom, abstinence-only education, the family turmoil that often comes from too-early parenthood, the idea of teen marriage, the impact this may or may not have on voters and the GOP ticket, and oh, the future that awaits this and the other 400,000+ babies who will be born to teen moms this year) and think for a moment about poor Bristol Palin whose life as she knows it is pretty much over.

Not only has her mom had to publicly address her personal life (as a former teenage girl I cringe at the memory of my own mother discussing anything having to do with my social life) but pretty much everyone else in the country is talking about it too. She's going to marry her high school boyfriend (whose MySpace page reportedly said he doesn't want kids). She has to become a parent, to a living, breathing, human being who may indeed give her unconditional love but who will certainly require that same unconditional love by his or her parents. And she'll do it all in the public eye.

Like it or not Bristol Palin is now the poster child for teen pregnancy in the U.S. Jamie Lynn's a mother now, those Gloucester girls likely didn't have a pact at all, and Juno MacGuff is so last year. So now it's Bristol. And if there's a bright side to all this it's that it's now getting harder and harder to say that teen pregnancy happens to other people, to people from bad families, to people in poverty, to people in Hollywood, to people who live in public housing (although the Alaska governor's residence probably qualifies on a technicality), to people who aren't "like me."

Because teen pregnancy can happen to anyone (anyone having sex as a teenager that is).  It happens to nearly one-third of American girls (and those girls aren't pregnant by themselves). And it is totally preventable—either don't have sex or use protection consistently and carefully every single time. Which is actually the most important topic of all.