Friday, June 20, 2008

The generation that will be taking care of you and I when we are oldies.

I can't even form a coherent sentence to say about this news story. I can't. From the AP:

Reports: Teen girls made pact to get pregnant

29 minutes ago

GLOUCESTER, Mass. - 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.

2 comments:

ron st.amant said...

This story has really bothered me or so many levels that I'm still struggling to absorb them all.
As if the people you meet in high school are the people you WANT to spend the rest of your life with?

Know how many people I've seen since my graduation...3! THREE!! and those were somewhat random.

I don't want to sound like a reactionary conservative, but I wonder if they get these ideas from the Britney's of the world they admire.

MLL said...

Yeah, I think they just might.

I haven't kept up with much of the follow-up coverage on this pact story. It sounds like it may have been a case of hearsay or misinterpretation, but man...I don't know. I can totally see the original story being true.