This is unbelievable!!

Teen Pregnancy shocks Massachusetts City

BOSTON (Reuters) - A Massachusetts city is investigating an apparent teenage "pregnancy pact" that has at least 17 high-school girls expecting babies, four times more than last year, including many aged 16 or younger.
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A high school health clinic in the city of Gloucester became suspicious after seeing a surge in girls seeking pregnancy tests. Local officials said on Thursday nearly half of those who became pregnant appear to have entered into a pact to have their babies together over the year.

"Some girls seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant than when they were," Gloucester High School principal Joseph Sullivan told Time magazine, which broke news of the pact on its Web site.

Sullivan was not immediately available to comment. But local officials said at least some of the men involved in the pregnancies were in their mid-20s, including one man who appeared to be homeless. Others were boys in the school.

Carolyn Kirk, mayor of the port city 30 miles northeast of Boston, said authorities are looking at whether to pursue statutory rape charges. "We're at the very early stages of wrestling with the complexities of this problem," she said.

"But we also have to think about the boys. Some of these boys could have their lives changed. They could be in serious, serious trouble even if it was consensual because of their age -- not from what the city could do but from what the girls' families could do," she told Reuters.

Under Massachusetts law, it is a crime to have sex with anyone under the age of 16.

NATIONAL TREND

"At the very least these men should be held responsible for financial support, if not put in jail for statutory rape as the mayor has suggested," Greg Verga, chairman of the Gloucester School Committee, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Nationwide, teen pregnancies are showing signs of rising after steadily declining from 1991 to 2005. This trend was highlighted on Thursday when Britney Spears' 17-year-old sister Jamie Lynn, star of Nickelodeon's popular TV show "Zoey 101," gave birth to a baby girl, according to People magazine.

"The data seem to be indicating that the declines that we had seen through the 1990s are coming to a close," said David Landry, a researcher at the Guttmacher Institute, a New York-based nonprofit group focusing on reproductive issues.

Birth rates for teenagers aged 15 to 17 rose by 3 percent in 2006, the first increase since 1991, according to preliminary data released in December by the National Center for Health Statistics.

Landry cautioned against attributing the trend to Hollywood following the recent hit movie "Juno," in which a teenager gets pregnant and decides to have the baby, and "Knocked Up," a comedy about a one-night stand.

"The trend emerged before those movies," he said.

In Gloucester, the 1,200-student school administered 150 pregnancy tests to students in the past academic year. The school forbids the distribution of condoms and other contraception without parental consent -- a rule that prompted the school's doctor and nurse to resign in protest in May.

"But even if we had contraceptives, that pact shows that if they wanted to get pregnant, they will get pregnant. Whether we distribute contraceptives is irrelevant," said Verga.

They are always from Gloucester.

stupid kids

Sounds like the stuff crappy movies are made of. Totally insane and inane. Shameless, all involved. Sick, sick, sick.

What's wrong with kids these days?!

I just can't believe how naive these kids are!!!

I have 3 words...



WHAT


THE


FRAK

Stupid is as stupid does, these kids dont have a clue

Is this a hoax ?????

i just saw that on the news!!

how insane..

its the role models of the kids..im sure of it...

Young girls dont really have any untarnished role models anymore

somebody needs to put the cosby's or leave it to beaver back on tv..

idk....cant avoid tv... lets all smile cuz jamie lynn had a beautiful baby girl today!!!

Sad as that is its not the first time it has happened. Several years ago we had somthing like that happen in my town.

I agree with you. I would never think to make a pact to try to get knocked up when I was 16.

WTF is wrong with today's society? Well, with all the political correctness, we have become numb and immune to morals. EVERYTHING steps on someone's toes.

I remember the days when celebrities could f*ck up quietly and it remained a quiet little tidbit. The media blows everything up way out of line and quite honestly, I don't have to read the Inquirer anymore for bizarre news, I just have to pick up a copy of the L.A. Times.

So many people look at me strange when I say, I don't have tv in my house. I mean, I HAVE a tv, I just don't use it to watch television. It is used to watch approved movies and play approved videos games.

If I want to watch a show or read the news, I go the the appropriate websites. My 4 year old isn't subjected to watching sex sell a damn beer or watching some pig turn into a hot guy in a bar just cause he bought a condom in between Jeopardy or Reba.

Don't blame it just on the movies, or the celebrities, blame it also on the parents and the school. Where were they when this pregnancy "trend" or "pact" started taking affect? Gone are the days of good education and a good parental support, now are the days of everybody blaming everyone else for not doing their job, when it should start with you. If you get "wind" of kids doing a certain immoral or illegal act in school, talk to your kid about and explain why it is wrong. Talk to the school also. Ask the school, "What are you doing to prevent this? Aren't you going to take any measures towards disciplining the students that are promoting (whatever the current issue is)?" Step in. Volunteer to help teachers talk to students. answer any questions your kids may have to ask you, be it about sex, drugs, smoking, etc. And ask your kids about it. Find out what their opinion is, how much they know, etc. You'd be surprised what today's youth knows. WAY more than I did when I was 16. Quite honestly, when I was 16, I had no clue as to what "clam-diving" or "carpet-munching" or "hummer" meant. Serious. That just was never dreamt of in my school. And no, I was NOT in a private Catholic School, I was in a high school that got all the expellees from other high schools, so we had a lot of misfits running around. I knew basic terms for drugs, as most do when they participate in "D.A.R.E" but if you said "Hey, wanna do some H?" I would laugh and joke how do you do a constanant?"

Yeah, I knew friends that smoked pot, but I made it a point to listen to my parents and the lovely officers that told me and showed me pictures of what happens when someone is under the influence of ANY mind altering chemical.

When a nail is hammered hard enough into a kid's Mahogany-fortified skulls, the lesson will seep through.