17 Teen Pregnancies a Coincidence?

[Miranda]

17 Pregnancies a 'Coincidence,' Says Teen

Gloucester Student Denies Girls Formed 'Pact' to Purposefully Get Pregnant

By RUSSELL GOLDMAN and ELISA ROUPENIAN

June 24, 2008

One of the pregnant teenage girls at a Massachusetts high school denied that 17 students had entered a pact in an effort to get pregnant and called the high rate of pregnancies "unlucky" and a "coincidence."

"There was definitely no pact," Lindsey Oliver, 17, who became pregnant when she was a junior, told ABC's "Good Morning America" today. "There was a group of girls already pregnant that decided they were going to help each other to finish school and raise their kids together. I think it was just a coincidence."

News of the pregnancies at Gloucester High School made headlines last week after a rumor reported in Time magazine and given credence in an interview with the school's principal that the girls promised one another to become pregnant and raise their children together.

The mayor of Gloucester also denied Monday that there was evidence of a pact and blamed the increased number of teen mothers on a lack of health education funding and the "glamorization of pregnancy" in the media. "Beyond the statement of the principal, we have no evidence there was a pact," the mayor said. "The principal could not remember who told him that."

Kirk blamed the media's "glamorization of pregnancy" and "movies that depicted teen pregnancy as something to be desired."

She mentioned Jamie Lynn Spears, the 17-year-old sister of pop singer Britney Spears, who delivered a baby this weekend, and alluded to the recent hit film "Juno," a hit comedy about a teenager who becomes pregnant.

Oliver said the movies and pop culture had nothing to do with the pregnancy boon.

"I don't get why people think those movies are glamorizing it," Oliver said, adding that the Juno character ended up having to put her baby up for adoption.

Oliver said the school should reverse a policy that bans the school's distribution of contraception to students.

"[Officials] say they want to make a difference but won't do anything to help [students]," Oliver said. "They should be giving contraceptives out in the nurse's office."

Asked if distributing condoms and birth control would further encourage underage sex, Oliver said, "The kids are obviously having it anyway; there are 17 pregnant girls."

Mayor Kirk said that district policy did not permit the distribution of contraceptives but that the policy was under review.

Oliver and her boyfriend, Andrew Psalidas, 20, a community college student, said the pregnancy was unplanned and that Oliver was on the pill.

The identities of the other girls and their babies' fathers have not been made public.

According to the principal quoted in the Time article, one girl had sex with a 24-year-old homeless man.

Kirk would not comment on the fathers of the unborn children, saying only that under Massachusetts law, school officials would be required to report suspicions of statutory rape.

Gloucester, a socially conservative fishing town about 30 miles north of Boston, has struggled with teen pregnancy for years, though on average only four girls a year typically become pregnant at the 1,200-student high school.

In May, two officials at the high school health center resigned to protest the local hospital's refusal to distribute contraceptives through the school without parental consent.

Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

[Miranda]

Time Magazine article of the 17 pregnancies at Gloucester High School.

Pregnancy Boom at Gloucester High

By Kathleen Kingsbury

As summer vacation begins, 17 girls at Gloucester High School are expecting babies — more than four times the number of pregnancies the 1,200-student school had last year. Some adults dismissed the statistic as a blip. Others blamed hit movies like Juno and Knocked Up for glamorizing young unwed mothers. But principal Joseph Sullivan knows at least part of the reason there's been such a spike in teen pregnancies in this Massachusetts fishing town. School officials started looking into the matter as early as October, after an unusual number of girls began filing into the school clinic to find out if they were pregnant. By May, several students had returned multiple times to get pregnancy tests, and on hearing the results, "some girls seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant than when they were," Sullivan says. All it took was a few simple questions before nearly half the expecting students, none older than 16, confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. Then the story got worse. "We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy," the principal says, shaking his head.

The question of what to do next has divided this fiercely Catholic enclave. Even with national data showing a 3% rise in teen pregnancies in 2006 — the first increase in 15 years — Gloucester isn't sure it wants to provide easier access to birth control. In any case, many residents worry that the problem goes much deeper. The past decade has been difficult for this mostly white, mostly blue-collar city (pop. 30,000). In Gloucester, perched on scenic Cape Ann, the economy has always depended on a strong fishing industry. But in recent years, such jobs have all but disappeared overseas, and with them much of the community's wherewithal. "Families are broken," says school superintendent Christopher Farmer. "Many of our young people are growing up directionless."

The girls who made the pregnancy pact — some of whom, according to Sullivan, reacted to the news that they were expecting with high fives and plans for baby showers — declined to be interviewed. So did their parents. But Amanda Ireland, who graduated from Gloucester High on June 8, thinks she knows why these girls wanted to get pregnant. Ireland, 18, gave birth her freshman year and says some of her now pregnant schoolmates regularly approached her in the hall, remarking how lucky she was to have a baby. "They're so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally," Ireland says. "I try to explain it's hard to feel loved when an infant is screaming to be fed at 3 a.m."

The high school has done perhaps too good a job of embracing young mothers. Sex-ed classes end freshman year at Gloucester, where teen parents are encouraged to take their children to a free on-site day-care center. Strollers mingle seamlessly in school hallways among cheerleaders and junior ROTC. "We're proud to help the mothers stay in school," says Sue Todd, CEO of Pathways for Children, which runs the day-care center.

But by May, after nurse practitioner Kim Daly had administered some 150 pregnancy tests at Gloucester High's student clinic, she and the clinic's medical director, Dr. Brian Orr, a local pediatrician, began to advocate prescribing contraceptives regardless of parental consent, a practice at about 15 public high schools in Massachusetts. Currently Gloucester teens must travel about 20 miles (30 km) to reach the nearest women's health clinic; younger girls have to get a ride or take the train and walk. But the notion of a school handing out birth control pills has met with hostility. Says Mayor Carolyn Kirk: "Dr. Orr and Ms. Daly have no right to decide this for our children." The pair resigned in protest on May 30.

Gloucester's elected school committee plans to vote later this summer on whether to provide contraceptives. But that won't do much to solve the issue of teens wanting to get pregnant. Says rising junior Kacia Lowe, who is a classmate of the pactmakers': "No one's offered them a better option." And better options may be a tall order in a city so uncertain of its future. — With reporting by Kimberley McLeod/New York