Then you’re going to get pregnant, regardless of whether or not contraceptives are provided. Seems pretty straightforward, doesn’t it?
So I see this news article on Drudge about this incident in Gloucester:
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.
Right. Get it? Some girls decide to get pregnant, and proceed to do so. Naturally, one’s thoughts turn to what could have been done to prevent these girls from being so foolish. Probably giving some counseling on what life is like as a single mother, how hard it is to raise a child, alone, at age 16. But no. Time magazine thinks it’s the lack of available contraception that’s to blame.
I’m not even kidding.
The rest of the article basically scolds the people of Gloucester, describes them as white, Catholic, and blue-collar, and against contraception. But what available contraception would do to prevent girls who wanted to get pregnant from doing so is beyond me. The article doesn’t try to make the case that explicitly, but here, read the closing paragraphs:
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.
Boy, I just love the MSM. Even when they explicitly know their pre-written narrative doesn’t make sense, they stick with it anyways. Nice work.
Tags: Contraception, Gloucester, Media Bias, MSM, Teen Pregnancy, Time Magazine
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5 Responses to “If You Want To Get Pregnant…”
June 19th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
And they missed the really interesting thing here: what makes a bunch of high school girls think that pregnancy is a good idea? I think the “we make it easier for teen mothers to stay in school” explanation is rather facile; if anything, i’d think the presence of teen moms (presumably talking about what is really hard about their situation) might be a disincentive. Is it something cultural? A belief that they have few options in life? That’s a story worth exploring.
June 20th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
I heard this story this morning on NPR and couldn’t believe it…
I enjoy bashing the mainstream media as much as the next guy, but I think you’ve given a little less credit than is deserved here. I think the contraception angle is covered not because the MSM wants to bend the story, but because that’s what the twits in Gloucester thought would solve this particular problem – to the point of two of them resigning in protest.
And the fact is, in most cases lacking this one’s bizarre twist, access to contraceptives very well would reduce teen pregnancy. Working at an “inner city” high school with female students who are sexually active, I can directly attest to this. They WILL have sex. The question is, will they at least act to mitigate the consequences? Easy access is key – teens are lazy. So yes, it would help.
Highlighting the Catholic community merely shows that this solution will likely not fly there.
As to your objection, the article itself goes straight to it and ::explicitly:: states:
“But [contraceptives ] 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.”
I wish I knew what hopeless alternative they thought they were avoiding by willingly walking into this circumstance, marked too often by despair, poverty, abuse, neglect and strain. The article hints that they wanted “unconditional love.” As a new father, I can tell you, even at 18 months, my son doesn’t provide “unconditional love,” and I’m a patient, conscientious and wizened father (having waited to have children until later in life). At 16, I would have been an unholy menace, and I’m sure my son would be even less likely to provide such mythical adoration.
These girls needed to get dogs.
September 12th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Hi. I’m 14 years old…and I want to be pregnant. The whole idea just seems fun. The idea of having a baby…the idea of being pregnant, and feeling my belly. I might/do sound crazy and you might yell at me.
But I can’t help it.
Now this doesn’t mean I’m going to go off and sleep with a homeless guy. I’m not going to get pregnant. I know better and I know how to say no. I’m only a freshman…I have my whole life ahead of me. I know how much raising a baby costs too. But I honestly can’t wait to have a baby. I don’t know if this is normal or not and I think about it all the time.
This all started when my boyfriend broke up with me because he wanted to have sex with me, and he knew he shouldn’t. It was devastating. Then I got to thinking that if we would have had sex, and I got pregnant, we could become a family. I loved him, and I still do, so I wished he would have gotten me pregnant. I now know I shouldn’t get pregnant for the reasons listed above. But I still can’t wait.
Someone help?
January 29th, 2010 at 11:46 am
Samantha, this is a message for you. You are smarter than most girls who feel these urges, and believe it or not, they are completely natural. I myself have been having these feelings for about 10 months, ever since my boyfriend and I first got together. I talked to my therapist about them, and here’s the thing, we as women are animals, and we do have natural urges, and for many women this manifests in a carnal need to find a mate and procreate. However, our intelligence allows us to overcome these feelings, because the biological and psychological need are not the only factors involved. When I really think about what would happen if I got pregnant, I freak out, because I know I’m not ready. Just accept these feelings are there, but also listen to your head. There’s no harm in dreaming about the day you have a baby, but tell me this, when you dream, are you in a nice house with enough money to support yourself with a loving partner? These things will probably not happen if you get pregnant now. Work on achieving those things, and then you can have your baby.
Good luck!
February 5th, 2010 at 7:14 am
To Samantha and Suzi
I’m 14, turning 15 in March and live in Australia. I have had this dream to get pregnant ever since I was in year 7. I really want a child, desperately. Sometimes I think that something is wrong with me for thinking this, but other times I think that it’d be wonderful.
I actually asked my Dad what he’d do if I did get pregnant, and I asked him about a year ago. He said that if I did, he would be more than happy and willing to let me stay with him and he would help me along the way, and that also counts for school. My Dad doesn’t have a job, and I’m not proud or do I either approve of what he does, but he supports me.
For this, I really do want to get pregnant. I have a dream of me and this baby in my arms, although we would be struggling a little bit, we would also have family.
And of course, half of my family would disown me, but thats ok. As long as I have at least one adult who supports me in my descisions.
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