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.)
“When I was in high school, we just had a school nurse”
When I was in high school in the early 50s we didn’t even have that and there was 3600 in the school.
True... and both would have been laughed at(behind their backs) for their lame-a$$ decision. These idiots in Gloucester probably have half the school as their own, personal rooting/support group.
I second what Exgeeeye said about the homeless guy. I also think it was a fetish on the part of the girl ie “oooh, I get so turned out with the DANGER of getting pregnant by a filthy homeless guy.”
In Massachusetts..? No doubt. They seem to have similar facial features to me...maybe my eyes are finally starting to fail.
It might just be involuntary bug chasing. There was a case in upstate NY at decade or so back where a black, HIV positive, twenty-something, homeless guy infected/impregnated white high school girls.
The attraction to danger, to the taboo, to p.o’ing your parents is something I can barely comprehend, but attraction to the scuzzy? And a girl may like a bad man, because danger is exciting and if he devotes himself to her, it proves how special she is, but to share him with half a dozen of her friends?
I do not understand the world some of today’s girls live in.
I remember a time when pregnant single girls were subjects of plenty of criticism. Most of it probably came from their parents, but the neighbors young and old looked down on what they did, also.
At one time there was a stigma attached to certain behaviours. Though some may see it as mean, I believe it was and is necessary in order to keep society intact.
The majority of those who grew up in the 40s and 50s have good reason to believe that this country has "gone to hell in a handbasket" (origin apparently not known). We all get the gist of it, though. (Origin
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