Did The Schoolgirls Plan To Get Pregnant At The Same Time At Gloucester High School, New England?

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Main Category: Pregnancy / Obstetrics
Also Included In: Sexual Health / STDs;  Women's Health / Gynecology;  Psychology / Psychiatry
Article Date: 21 Jun 2008 - 0:00 PDT

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Why did several Gloucester High School schoolgirls repeatedly turn up at the school's health clinic requesting pregnancy tests? Why did they react happily to positive pregnancy test results, and sadly to negative ones? Seventeen girls at this one school became pregnant this year - four times higher than one would normally expect. Reports indicate that they may have been involved in some kind of pact - a 'lets all get pregnant at the same time' pact.

None of the girls is over 16 years of age, some of them are younger, most of them are second-year students (sophomores).

Most schoolgirls would become extremely worried and anxious if a test showed they were pregnant. There would generally be no jubilation at all. According to Time magazine, Joe Sullivan, principal of Gloucester High School said the girls had confessed to making a pact.

According to Associated Press, Superintendent Christopher Farmer could not confirm such a pact ever existed. "What we do know is there was a group of students being tested for pregnancy on a regular basis, which would suggest they were not taking steps to avoid becoming pregnant, and that when some of them had their babies, they appeared to be very pleased," Farmer said.

There are no reports of any girls or their relatives coming forward to confirm such a pact. According to Farmer, the girls do not seem to want to reveal who the fathers are. Reports indicate that some of them are much older than the girls.

According to AFP Greg Verga, a member of the school's board said that the idea of a pact has been blown out of proportion. Verga added "I heard no talk of a pact until I read the article in Time." He went on to say that the article in Time magazine misrepresents the facts.

According to a local Gloucester journalist, news about a significant increase in teen pregnancies in the town had been floating around since March, 2008.

Many who read about this story wonder why single teenage girls would want to have a baby. Might it be to fill an emotional void in their lives, a result of poor esteem, a lack of affection in their lives - affection that would be received from a baby?

According to Time magazine, perhaps on-site childcare and healthcare facilities at Gloucester High are too good - making it an appealing place for young women to become mothers. There is no evidence anywhere that a school's facilities might encourage teenage girls to want to have children.

According to The Guttmacher Institute, United States has the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in the industrial world. Teen pregnancies are estimated to cost the USA $7 billion per year. Approximately 750,000 teenage girls become pregnant in the USA each year - 80% of these are unintended and 81% of these teenagers are single.

Teenagers in the UK and Sweden are more sexually active than American teenagers, but have significantly lower rates of unplanned teenage pregnancies. The UK has the highest teen pregnancy rate in Western Europe.

Written by - Christian Nordqvist
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