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Teen girls made pact to get pregnant

3 hours ago

GLOUCESTER, Mass. (AP) — A pact made by a group of teens to get pregnant and raise their babies together is at least partly behind a sudden spike in pregnancies at Gloucester High School, school officials said.

Principal Joseph Sullivan told Time magazine in a story published Wednesday that the girls confessed to making the pact after the school began investigating a rise in pregnancies that has left 17 girls at the school carrying a child. Normally, there are about four pregnancies a year at the school.

Sullivan told Time that nearly half of the expecting students, none over 16, were involved. Sullivan said students were coming to the school clinic multiple times to get pregnancy tests, and "seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant than when they were."

Some of the girls reacted to the news they were pregnant with high fives and plans for baby showers, Sullivan said. One of the fathers "is a 24-year-old homeless guy," Sullivan told the magazine.

Superintendent Christopher Farmer confirmed the deal to WBZ-TV, saying the girls had "an agreement to get pregnant."

He said the girls are generally "girls who lack self-esteem and have a lack of love in their life."

Christen Callahan, a former Gloucester High School student who had a child when she was 15, said on NBC's "Today" show that some of the girls would ask her about her own pregnancy.

"They would say stuff like, oh, I think my parents would be fine with it and they would help me, stuff like that," Callahan said.

But she said she had no firsthand knowledge of a pact between the girls to get pregnant.

"They were just kind of like curious about it, they never actually came out and said it," Callahan said.

The first reports of the students' apparent plan to get pregnant were in the Gloucester Daily Times in March, when Sullivan said students were reporting that the girls were getting pregnant on purpose.

The rash of pregnancies has shaken the seaside city about 30 miles north of Boston. Last month, two officials at the high school health center resigned to protest the resistance from the local hospital to the confidential distribution of contraceptives. The hospital administers the state money that funds the clinic.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g798CHaazwkE1E0TMQv8AZ60Bj1wD91DRBHG0

Thoughts?

I had just read that (my husband sent it to me.) "Trips to the shopping centre lose their appeal eventually. Drastic action was required to alleviate boredom."

I thought it was pretty awful especially for the one girl to have sex with a homeless man to get pregnant. But to force the girls to use BC would be a violation of their rights and they obviously don't want the BC. It blows the argument against abstinence only sex education out of the water (in their situation.)

I know in the church we used to go to many of the teen girls were pregnant or had one or two children. One girl was pregnant with her third child. I look very young for my age and they thought I was 'one of them' and when they found out I was married I was booted out of their club (not that I wanted to be in it anyway.)

Why is teen pregnancy cool? I didn't even go on a date until I was 18 and when the guy tried to force himself on me I almost pushed his head through the window. :) Then I told his guy friends and all the girls in my dorm what he did.

Even so, my roommates said "But he's so cute and talented (musician/singer,) why would you say no?"

Truthfully, I only went out with him because I wanted to see Ever After at the theater and he offered. But still, say I WAS attracted to him, I was much too smart to have unprotected sex at 18 years old. Maybe I wasn't cool, but I wasn't a teen mom either and that's worth not being cool.

It's all horribly sad and stupid.  However, having been a teen mom due to an unplanned pregnancy, I'm trying to look on the bright side.  At the very least, these girls will have support from each other as they go through all the trials of pregnancy and parenthood. 

On another note, I just saw on the news that the DA is planning to press charges on the fathers for statutory rape.  I'm against that, wholly.  Let's not make a bad situation worse by putting the fathers of these children behind bars.

Sara

Mom to one beautiful little girl, Imogen