Did teen mothers-to-be make pregnancy pact
New York Times News Service
Published on: 06/19/08 BOSTON — At least 17 girls at the public high school in the seaside town of Gloucester, Mass., are expecting babies, and a Time magazine report says nearly half became pregnant after making a pact to do so and raise the children together.
Local officials reached Thursday would not confirm the existence of such a pact but acknowledged that many of the 17 pregnancies — a total four times as many as last school year at the 1,200-student school — had been intentional.
“I’ve heard some of them were not accidents; some of them were pleased when they got the results,” said Greg Verga, a member of the Gloucester School Committee. “I did hear that there were cases where a teen went in several times for pregnancy tests and seemed depressed when it was negative.”
Joseph Sullivan, the principal of the school, Gloucester High, could not be reached for comment. But Time quoted him as saying that of the pregnant students, almost half, none older than 16, had engaged in the pact.
Reached on Thursday, Mayor Carolyn Kirk said the existence of such an agreement was “believable, in the sense that it would explain this spike” in teenage pregnancies.
Kirk, a member of the school committee, also said that some of those who impregnated the students were men in their mid-20s.
Gloucester is a fishing town of 30,000 that is encountering hardships with the decline of the fishing industry.
“This is a city in transition going through a hard economic time,” Kirk said. “There are cuts in economic programs, cuts in services, cuts in after-school programs, and they’re all impacting the social climate. We really let these kids down.”
“It’s the social environment these girls are coming from,” she added. “They think that a baby can give them love or give them status or fill an empty space in their life, and these girls are very, very young. And I think if you talk to any teenage mother who is caring for an infant, the road is not easy.”
The surge in teenage pregnancy has brought a heated debate over contraception and education in Gloucester, which is heavily Roman Catholic. The school clinic’s medical director and its chief nurse practitioner both resigned in May after the hospital that administers grants for the clinic opposed making contraceptives available to students.
The clinic does not distribute contraceptives, and Gloucester High School’s health curriculum has been cut for budget reasons, meaning there is no sex education, Kirk said.
Meanwhile, in addition to the 17 girls known to be pregnant, others continue to arrive at the clinic asking for pregnancy tests.
The school committee is now considering educational programs on teenage pregnancy and weighing whether the clinic should distribute contraceptives. Kirk has instructed her health director to compile information about the issue from the state, other agencies and independent experts. She said the committee hoped to have a policy regarding education, contraception and related services in place by the start of the next school year.
“It’s very complicated,” she said. “There are many layers, and I am insisting on a process where the school committee can explore all of the layers, get good information, find out what works in other communities and come to a good decision on behalf of our children.”
Posted on 20th June 2008
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