Posted on 06/19/2008 6:03:33 AM PDT by Mr. K
GLOUCESTER (WBZ) ― There's a stunning twist to the sudden rise in teen pregnancies at Gloucester High School. 17 students there are expecting and, according to a published report, most of them became that way on purpose.
Time Magazine is reporting that nearly half of the girls confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. None of the girls is older than 16.
Principal Joseph Sullivan said that wasn't all that was shocking.
"We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy," he told Time.
Last month, two top officials at the high school's health center resigned in a fight over contraceptives distribution.
Medical Director Dr. Brian Orr and chief nurse practitioner Kim Daly support confidentially giving contraceptives to students. They were outraged about resistance from Addison Gilbert Hospital, which administers the state public health grant that funds the school clinic.
Normally, the school has about four pregnancies per school year.
According to Time, school officials started looking into the spike in pregnancies after an unusual number of girls came to the school clinic for pregnancy tests. Some came by several times.
"Some girls seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant than when they were," Sullivan told the magazine.
The pregnant girls and their parents turned down requests to be interviewed.
A recent graduate who had a baby during her freshman year told Time she knows why the girls wanted to get pregnant.
"They're so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally," Amanda Ireland, 18, said. "I try to explain it's hard to feel loved when an infant is screaming to be fed at 3 a.m." (© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
But teaching them respect for their body and abstinence might have.
Could be her wife... for all I know.
As they will with their parents when they are unable to care for themselves.
Everything's being reinvented so that the gub'mint becomes the host... and the dumbed-down citizen... becomes the grateful parasite.
A puppy would have been a better idea.
On second thought, that might not be fair to the puppy.
“And people wonder what’s wrong with kids today when the whole “feel good about yourself” thing escalates to where you have a baby so he’ll love YOU?”
I can’t disagree. I do also wonder about that girl’s parents —— I suspect a failure to love the child (and thus failing to instill morals -— and creating this need).
You discipline those you love.
Have they arrested the 24-year-old for statutory rape, or is knocking up a 16-year-old girl okay in Massachusetts?
http://www.schoolmatters.com/schools.aspx/q/page=sp/sid=66419
Demographics above.
To my surprise, a largely white, largely blue collar town. That the school has a health clinic with a physician and nurse practitioner suggests that sex and its consequences have been a problem there for some time.
Don't know about Massachusetts - it may be 17; but here in Connecticut the legal age of consent I'm fairly certain is 16.
“none older than 16”. Some younger. And a 16 y.o. can be 15 when knocked up.
I’d like to know more about this 24 y.o. homeless man - what could be his attraction that a group of young fools want to bear his children? Bleah.
Just like they love their parents unconditionally, right?
I'm not surprised. These are the places that are seeing the biggest increase in "baby mamas." Its a trend that I noticed a little over a decade ago, and it appears to be growing into an epidemic.
If they don't go to college, they get knocked up.
Boys also a focus in school contraception talks
It's looking as though most of the sperm donors weren't fellow high school students.
Well, it doesn’t matter. The administrators are assuming the girls are getting pregnant because they don’t know how to prevent it. In most cases, as in this story, that’s just not true.
No only is that display vulgar and tactless it is, is......SAY, how’d you get those things to stick like that!??? :)
Heck, they’re not even grateful.
Depends upon which culture you ascribe to...
In this case, these are blue collar white girls. Gloucester isn't Beacon Hill, but it isn't Roxbury either.
You had teen pregnancy in places like Gloucester before, but in the past, Pat would marry Marie and they would have a miserable marriage, but at least provide a financially stable household for the child. Times have changed, and now we have weird sexual fetish "pacts" like this one, which involve screwing a homeless guy. THAT is one hell of a fetish, only one step above "bug chasing."
Which of these innocent children was raped? IMHO, not a single one, statutes notwithstanding.
Flame on!
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