So the beauty queen has given up her crown to birth a child!

A tabloid story if ever there was one in content and in stature last week with the announcement from Spartan that Sara Lawrence, Miss Jamaica World 2006, was found to be pregnant and could not continue her majestic reign as the Jamaican queen for the rest of the year.

Oh yes, and she was also the Caribbean queen from the Miss World crowning.

Now, ordinarily P and I have scant regard for the female human cattle judging exercise and mostly reserve our comments. We have been grown up on beauty contests from the days when this paper was the prime vehicle for showing the bods and stimulating everyone on the island into suggesting who the winner might be.

Beautiful drivel

We have a schooled interpretation of the contest's purpose and execution. However, ask us what we really feel about it and we might just use our fingers to flap our lips and have spittle flying all over the place. That's right, beauty contests by their basic premise are drivel, and this incident just proves it.

Now, should the young lady have to step down? Well, yes, if she signed up to something that said you can't get pregnant during the year when you are queen she has got to go.

Though I have not seen the 'no pregnancy' clause during the reign, I am aware that not having a child before entering, as well as not bringing the event in to disrepute are clearly stated criteria.

This disrepute thing must be where they got poor little Sara. Of course, what in the world could be more offensive than a 22-year-old pregnant woman that people would call queen, or worse yet, "baby mother queen" or "queen baby mother"? Especially if she is suffering from morning sickness, has slightly swollen features and is spitting in toilet paper every couple of seconds!

No sex

Also, not sure if the sign up also meant that she should not have sex - but since pregnancy is one of the strong by-products of sex maybe Sara should have given the year-without-sex option some real thought.

What, however, is most disturbing is the notion that having found out that she was pregnant that she had a real choice and did not have to step down as queen. P wonders if it would have been Ok with the organisers for Sara to have had an abortion.

In her statement published on the Miss Jamaica World website www.missjamaicaworld.com Sara says "It is my moral obligation to do what is ethically correct." what does that mean, was there really a choice?

The organisers of the competition say young Sara "made an error of judgement". Was that error:

a) Entering the competition.

b) Opting to have sex while being the queen, or

c) Not having an abortion?

P and I really don't get it, we are a bit slow on the uptake this week.

On reading the "judgement" comment from the organisers the first thing that came to my mind was, "So how many of our other queens have little cemeteries in their closets, of children aborted to save the glamour and glitter of the precious Miss Jamaica World crown?

For our sanity P and I would rather not have the answer to that question.

Anyway, Sara - you chose life over glamour and in today's materialistic world that takes backbone and guts. Good choice, but it was a less than noble competition in the first place so, have no regrets.

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