Pregnant on Purpose

Well I guess they won't have to "stay home without their friends after the baby comes"...because they will all be meeting for play dates.

Wow.

Just, wow.

I wonder how the girls will re-act when one of them give the baby up for adoption....I imagine at least one of them will do it, and while she's carefree and they aren't...hmmmmm.

Will they high five her then?

Gloucester is often described as being a "fiercely Catholic" community. Do you know if these girls were from church-going families or were they the exceptions?

Apparently most of the fathers were from a street gang in Boston. What do we know about the girls' ties to this gang? Was this some sort of gang initiation?

There is a break down of teen pregnancy by state available at http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2006/09/12/USTPstats.pdf

Nevada and Arizona are one and two in the stats. After that comes Mississippi, New Mexico, Texas and....well, can you believe it? Florida. Aren't these mostly Christian states? I mean the number one state in teen pregnancy is 27% Roman Catholic, 13% Evangelical, 11% mainstream Protestant and 11% Mormon. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada#Religion)

New York doesn't make the list until number 14 and ultra-liberal Connecticut, with a strong sex ed program, isn't on until 33.

What are these kids getting taught on Sundays?

[quote]I mean the number one state in teen pregnancy is 27% Roman Catholic, 13% Evangelical, 11% mainstream Protestant and 11% Mormon. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada#Religion)[/quote]

What is this?  Christian bashing? What does that have to do with this article?  Were they all Christians who got pregnant? I would say dollars to donuts they were NOT.   Or is that what you are hoping Larry?  Anyhow...look at your stats (if they're even right) and let's suppose they're legit....did you add them up?  That equals 62%.  So?  That still leaves 38% as no affiliation. 

 Besides all that...just saying you're a Mormon or a Catholic or even an Evangelical means nothing.  I know many who say they are are Catholic but only attend church Christmas and Easter.  It doesn't neccesarily make them Christian.  It makes them affiliated with a denomination whatever that may be. 

I don't believe there is any such thing as "Christian States."  What is that? 

MA is one of the most liberal states in the Union.  I know because I lived in Maine and we weren't far behind. Sex Ed was far more advanced there then any other part of the nation so what does that tell us?   Let's look at it from that angle....hmmm?

I have family in MA...lots of family.  They may be a traditional Catholic State but they were always very liberal.  Pretty much anything goes. 

I don't think this has anything to do with church.  I've been in church most of my life.  The kids in the churches were NOT the ones getting pregnant.   Usually because that meant there was family unity involved with faith binding them together.  The stronger the faith, the stronger the kids were at resisting outside influences.  

These girls, from the sounds of the articles surrounding it, came from homes where there was not alot of family unity and love that you'd find, for the most part, in most church families. 

 

 

 

 

If you think it has nothing to do with the church why did you raise the issue of Christianity in your article? You said "A Christian clinic would NEVER have closed their eyes to such a pact."

There is little of no evidence to support your assertion. Quoting from the April 23, 2008 report on abstinence training in schools "In contrast, other studies have reported that abstinence-until-marriage education programs did not affect the reported frequency of sexual intercourse or number of sexual partners. For example, one study of middle school students found that participants of an abstinence-until-marriage program were not less likely than nonparticipants at the 1 year follow-up to report less frequent sexual intercourse or fewer sexual partners."

From 1991 to 2004, there was a drop every year in the rate of teenage pregnancies in the United States. In 2005 and again in 2006, there was an increase. This despite $1.5 billion in taxpayer money being used to fund abstinence only initiatives. Dr. Douglas Kirby, a leading researcher on teen pregnancy and member of the Board of Directors for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancies said “there does not exist any strong evidence that any abstinence program delays the initiation of sex, hastens the return to abstinence, or reduces the number of sexual partners.” He urged a return to comprehensive forms of counseling, including birth control.

Your anecdotal experiences aside, there is little or no evidence to support your contention about Christian clinics.

An update:  Seems as tho now the city leaders are doing some scrambling and the HS principal is nowwhere to be found or at least hard to get a hold of by reporters wanting to interview him. 

The mayor has come out and said the pact is "alleged" and there is going to be an upcoming meeting of city leaders to discuss the reason why this group of girls, almost all sophomores, decided to get pregnant all at the same time.  The principal is not invited. 

So what is the story behind the story?  Hmmmm time will tell. 

 

I was driving this morning and heard that the principal now has a "foggy memory" when it comes to where he heard about this pact.  Oh brother.

Oh, and before anyone starts bashing it, can I just say that I don't think the movie Juno had anything to do with it?  It's actually a very realistic approach to teen pregnancy.  She is alienated from her school and friends, goes through a lot of emotional trauma, and ends up giving her baby up for adoption.  A stupid mistake turned right.  Or as right as the situation allowed.

That's just my little digression.  Thanks for the post, KFC.

KFC,

I agree that this is a very unwise and abhorrent pact for these young sophomores.

I do have several issues with your article though.



You are misleading in insinuating that Planned Parenthood is nothing more than a business and don't offer any kind of counseling. Sadly, I know several people that have had abortions with PP. Every single one has stated that PP DID offer counseling before proceeding through the abortion.

Christian or non-christian clinic still deal with the 'symptom' approach rather than the cause.

Although it was only briefly mentioned this is the LARGER issue in this whole scenario.



I will take it one step further. The issue is about self-worth. I'll digress with that.

----
Planned Parenthood isn't the problem here nor are they any solution either. They are merely dealing with the symptom/result from a more deeper issue. I find no fault in them.

Oh I do AD.  We're going to have to respectfully disagree.  I've read more article and have listened to more testimonies than I care to count from those very up close and personal to the PP clinics.  Many were not only abortion providers but also clinic owners. 

Ask Dobson.  He's had in the past many past abortionists on his site and they were very frank saying it was all about the bottom line.  They knew when they got permission to get into a school sytem their profits would skyrocket. 

Read the story "Won By Love" by Norma McCorvey all about the behind the scenes stuff going on.  She was the woman who got the whole ball rolling being the test case behind the landmark decision of 1973.  

As soon as the decision was final, she was dumped by those pushing the PP agenda ahead and away they went.   PP is a huge money maker and I say they are making money at our kids' expense. 

The lies behind many abortions by the provider (for money) are well documented and many have made it as far as the court systems in the form of litigation against PP. 

I've been involved in the Christain side of clinics and it's much different.  They do their best to deal with the causes but it's an uphill battle because they are NOT allowed into the school system like the PP clinics are.  There is no way a girl would be coming into a Christian clinic for repeated test results without some serious heart to heart.....that's probably why the Christian clinics are NOT so popular.  Makes sense that the PP would be the place to go if you were 16 wouldn't it?  Especially if the goal is to get pregnant. 

 

 

 

 

I guess we will have to disagree simply based on my experience vs yours. Not saying one is right over the other. I'm just suggesting that your generalization may be over done (again speaking from my experiences).



Can you tell me about the 'counseling' that the Christian clinics give? At least their approach (method)?

Great article describing a very sad and deeply disturbing set of events.

I missed this story when it was first breaking news and have only seen one FOX report which didn't tell much. After giving a slight overview of what happened, the focus was whether or not a fellow classmate thought it was a pact. She ended by saying it was not.

I don't think that info came out in any reports...all we know is they all attended a public high school...and as KFC has already pointed out..it's the sex (mis)education program where at least part of the blame lies.

But even so...let's say they were all Catholic...you know what? No one can blame the Church for her teaching has been the same since 33AD...like Christ, she condemns any sort of premarital sexual relations. Her constant teaching has been and still is and always will be chastity before marriage and fidelty afterwards. As recently as 1995, the Pontifical Council for the Family issued a document entitled, The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality: Guidelines for Education Within the Family" which condemns permissive co-ed sex instruction.

The adults in the school, the parents and the girls themselves have made decsions in violation of Catholic teaching.

CEDARBIRD POSTS:

Knowing that you are a college student only a few years older than these girls, I found your comments about the movie JUNO very enlightening.

I just read a movie review that has a completely different pov from yours and it would be most interesting to get your take on it.

The Movie "Juno" Explains Feminism


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by Phyllis Schlafly, March 19, 2008
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"Juno," which won an Academy Award for best original screenplay, is a movie sure to delight the feminists. The script answers No to the question posed in the title of Maureen Dowd's book, "Are Men Necessary?"

Juno is the name of a bratty 16-year-old girl (and I do mean "girl" because she's too immature to be called a woman). She finds herself in what the feminists call an unplanned pregnancy after initiating a loveless one-night incident with a classmate named Paulie.

After the sex, Juno ignores Paulie, treating him as a total irrelevancy. He has nothing to say about her predicament or her decision any more than any other classmate on the high school's cross-country running team.

Juno's first response to her pregnancy is to head for the abortion clinic. She changes her mind after passing a pro-life activist carrying a sign and being told that the baby has "fingernails."

The existence of fingernails seems to be what motivated her to reject abortion. Even so, Juno never refers to what she is carrying as a baby; she always calls her unborn child an "it."

Juno makes her decisions solely on her own whim. She doesn't permit her parents, or Paulie, or anyone else to have any input or advice about what she will do with the baby.

Meanwhile, this Academy Award-winning script is laced with dozens of obscenities and references to teenagers' sexually-active lifestyle. We get the drift of what they are taught in school when we see a public school teacher putting a condom on a banana.

Juno decides to give her thing to a prosperous childless yuppie couple who can provide all the material things of life. From a newspaper ad, she finds the perfect parents: Vanessa and Mark.

Juno's baby seems destined to live in a happy home until Mark realizes that his wife has suddenly pushed him out of the loop of her affection and attention. The movie's message is that no man should have anything to say about a baby for whom he is financially responsible.

With the impending arrival of the birth date, Mark realizes Vanessa doesn't need or want him any more. So he decides to move on.

All Juno's happy talk about placing her baby in a good home with loving parents is forgotten. Mark's departure breaks the adoption contract, and Juno could easily have found another two-parent home.

But that was not important to Juno. She gladly gives the baby to Vanessa where he will become one more statistic of a boy raised in a fatherless home.

The movie delicately portrays the birth of Juno's baby, but that's certainly not because feminists think delivering an illegitimate baby is preferable to killing him in utero. It's because a movie about a birth produces an adorable pictorial result, while pictures of an abortion are ugly, depressing, and ... well ... not good advertisements for feminism.

The theme of this movie isn't love, romance, or respect for life, but the triumph of feminist ideology, i.e., the irrelevancy of men, especially fathers. The men in the movie are likable, but marginalized; beyond their sperms and their paychecks, they have no value worth considering, and can be thrown overboard by independent women and girls.

The movie portrays the adoption as a good outcome, but it is not. The baby will grow up without a real or even a surrogate father, and Paulie, the father, is not asked to approve the adoption or to sign the adoption papers.

Some day the child will ask why he does not have a father. The truthful answer is that feminism has made fatherlessness acceptable in our society.

Juno does whatever she wants regardless of the consequences. That's a sign of immaturity, not maturity.

Her parents warn her not to visit Mark in his home alone, and she does it anyway. She has no qualms about disobeying her parents and contributing to the destruction of Mark and Vanessa's marriage.

America is in bad shape if the financial success of this movie reflects today's high school culture: sexual activity without marriage, crude pictures on the walls, vulgar language, a girl smoking a pipe, unattractive clothes, uncombed hair, enjoyment of slasher movies and weird music, and marriage breakup.

In the end, Juno decides she could like Paulie after all. Paulie is supposed to just get over the fact that Juno gave away their baby to a single woman.

The movie reviews of "Juno" usually call it a comedy. The theater where I saw it was nearly full, but I didn't see or hear anybody laugh.

Toward the end, Juno asks if it is "possible for two people to stay happy forever." The movie's obvious answer is no; not Vanessa and Mark, not Juno's father who is married to a woman not Juno's mother, and not any reason to hope that Juno would ever stay married to a good husband.

Read this article online: http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2008/mar08/08-03-19.html

That has nothing to do with the question at hand, Lula. I made a statement about how I don't think Juno motivated these girls to get pregnant, and you start in about feminism. That was a total digression from topic and a complete waste of space on this thread, regardless of the fact that I disagree wholeheartedly with it. The individual who wrote this also needs to bend over so I can pull the stick out of her butt.

Thanks. This is all I wanted to know.



While the news media focus is on whether or not it was girlie pact, they are completely avoiding the fact that the root cause of why these girls feel justified in what they do is Radical Feminism.

It's Radical Feminism that developed persmissive sex ed. It's Radical Feminism that is making whores out of women.

Lula, do you really think that sex ed is the blame for this?

If so, how do you figure?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

The pact was a LIE and you all fell for it, hook, line, and sinker!

The principal is full of bullshit, it seems.

And Lula: that 'review' of Juno was amazingly wrong. The person who wrote it obviously went in to the movie experience with a perverted slant, looking for a witch to hunt, and fabricated one with trite 'evidence' pulled from the film.

Best film of 2007. Hands down.

For example, in the Juno review, the biggest pile of hokey that stuck out to me was:



GUESS WHAT? The father explains that, while it may not have happened with Juno's mom, it's happened with his current wife, who he loves and wants to stay with no matter what. Excuse him for making a mistake the first time around, one he's rectified and now he's on the right track to happiness.

And that's what he explains to his daughter in that (touching, mind you) scene. That people can stay happy together forever. It's just a matter of finding the right person.

Just a small error in the fabricated, blown-out-of-context retardfest that is the Eagle Forum. The fact that you'd even post an article from that ridiculous, fascist, freedom-hating fearmongering group invalidates you even further in my eyes.

  So anytime a girl comes into a Christian clinic they would ask her whether she made a pact with other girls to have babies together?  I would think that you would be happy that they chose to carry their pregnancies to term. 

Oh and Lula, the review of Juno was extremely biased.  It just goes to show you how much our own biases taint our perceptions.  In the movie Juno's mother abandoned her family.  I hate the way they try to portray every divorce as a failure of both spouses.  The fact is no matter how much you want an intact family for your kids, you can't make someone stay married that doesn't want to be there.  One person can break the deal, that doesn't mean that the other spouse didn't value marriage. 

As far as the adoptive couple in the movie, the husband basically decides he has missed out and wants to be free and young again.  He doesn't want the responsibility of the family.  I never got the impression that the wife decided he was irrelevent. 

Why do you say so?

According to the link you provided (from AP news), the principal defended his comments saying, "I believe everything I told (Time) was and is accurate,". He also wanted to dispel the idea that his memory was foggy. So what if he was the first one to come up with the pact idea or not? Why is who said what about "the pact"-- the all important part of this wretched story?

Why all the fuss whether it was a "pre-pregnancy pact" or a "post-pregnancy pact" or if it was even "a pact" at all?

16 girls are pregnant! THAT THESE GIRLS ARE PREGNANT IS THE PROBLEM, Houston....for them, their baby, the baby's father, the parents and families, the school community and the greater community, society and the whole world who's apparently "looking in".

Ya, that's right, they are all looking in and realizing that we've got a culture that says "ho, hum, yawn" when 16 (or 17?) high school girls get pregnant (pact or not)! We've got a permissive culture that promotes schools as resource centers over learning centers. This school has permissive sex instruction, doles out birth control from it's own in house clinic, and then when sex instruction works and girls become pregnant and don't want an abortion to take care of their "mistake", then a school nursery comes in very handy indeed.

Cedarbird, SanChonino and Locamama,

I didn't see JUNO, but my 22 year old daughter did. She saw the radical feminist side but described it differently from that of Eagle-Forum. She thought JUNO glamorized teen pregnancy and said there was nothing comedic about it at all.




In the end, didn't his own grandchild end up fatherless?

I wonder how many of these girls come from traditional once married mom and pop homes? How many are fatherless themselves?

I have a hard time thinking that the whole problem lies at the feet of sex-education.

More likely (but since there are so few details about the people involved) it has far more to do with emotions, and a desire to feel connected and a bunch of other social issues that sex education can't possibly address.

I'm not sure how sex-education in the U.S. works.  It's probably extremely diverse from location to location.

As far as I'm concerned, sex-education should cover how one's body works, the vectors of STD's and the consequences of having sex (positive and negative). Dispel the myths that teenagers have about sex.  I think that is really important. I do think that parents have a huge responsibility to teach their children about these issues but most people don't have a lot of the information about how the body works, statistics etc.  

I honestly think that the whole morality aspect belongs in a completely different class. This is also the area where I think parents can really shine when talking about issues involving sex. One doesn't need a lot of knowledge about biology etc to have this discussion.  I also believe this kind of discussion in a family can really demystify the whole aura of sex.

Teenagers are going to talk about sex. Honestly, if they can't get the real facts, they are just going to promote they myths they believe or are floating around at the time.  In fact, I think sex-ed gives the parent a perfect opening to discuss things with their child.  Discussing what was covered in school can also give parents a chance to talk about their opinions or moral views and how it relates to what is going on in the place where they live.

Nothing is perfect, especially when it comes to topics that make people feel awkward. Maybe my views here are too idealistic.

 

Also, the person who did the Juno review must have done it without hearing the dialogue.

 

 

 

Well, it sounds like your daughter might be a crazy prude, too.





Amen.

AD POSTS:

Yes, permissive contraceptive sex ed most definitely figures in and must be held at least in part to blame.
I've got lots going on in the home front, so I'll get back with my thoughts on this as soon as I can.

AD POSTS:






If you go back in history, you'll find that Radical Feminism, Planned Parenthood and permissive sex ed are all intertwined in the same ball of yarn...you can't have one without the other.

In the US, Radical Feminism came into full bloom as a result of the cultural and sexual revolution of the 1960s...about the same time the birth control pill was being disseminated far and wide throughout the land....and the US Supreme Court ousted prayer from all public schools.

SIECUS stands for "Sex Information and Education Council of the US". SIECUS was founded in 1964 by Lester Kirkendall, a leader of Planned Parenthood and signatory of the Humanist Manifesto document. SIECUS guidelines are a full implementation on the concepts of human sexuality set forth in Humanist Manifesto II and the very foundation of most government education.

When developing the sex ed curriculum, one of the demands of the SIECUS policy makers was that a new, more open, "value-free" attitude toward sexuality morality be instilled in the minds of youth...but there was a bit of a problem to overcome. In order to be successful, they knew that the old-fashioned, repressive moralistic values especially of those acquired at home or Church must be questioned and weaned. It was decided that the first step in classroom sex ed was to undermine the authority of this morality and marginalize the virtue of chastity. The principles of Secular Humanism as outlined in the 2nd Humanist Manifesto were to be applied in the sex-ed curriculum using the apparatus called "values clarification" and "situational ethics".

It wasn't long before a bias toward secular humanism developed within the broad structure of education. Planned Parenthood and SIECUS saw the necessity and the advantages of institutionalizing classroom sex instruction and with the support of allies like the National Education Association, (NEA), educators who had been persuaded to employ permissive sex-ed teaching, have been steadily indoctrinating Kindergarten through 12th grade students into believing that they can make up their own mind about who and when to practice sex as long as its consensual and practiced "safely".

Humanistic educators believe the proper role for schools is to change, create, or clarify student's values and since God was reduced to irrelevant, the only absolute truth is that there are no absolute values. Values clarification and situational ethics teach them to discard their old values they come to school with and find and try new ones. educators, by making human sexuality thematic and public, strip the sexual act of its natural, intimate, and sacred nature. The result: these school kids can't read so well or perform math skills, but they sure know alot about putting on condoms and taking birth control pills or not. As these 16 high school girls have shown, their understanding of human sexuality has all the moral equivalency of going to the bathroom.

We've seen without doubt that permissive contraceptive sex instruction is a school's way of endorsing the lowest standards and encouraging inappropriate sexual behavior. Families should be appalled, but they aren't. Why? Becasue they are part of the culture that accepts contraception as well as abortion, divorce, and single motherhood.

We've completely lost the sacred sense of sexuality and that's why the human person and relationships are so devalued.

It's time, no passed time, that the adults in this world grasp the fact that sexual activity is 100% inappropriate for children. It should never be approved or condoned, let alone enabled as classroom sex instruction so aptly does.

When adults ignore the moral dimension of sexually active children, we deprive them of what they need to become integrated loving persons.

I saw it, with the sound on, and I thought it was HILARIOUS!

"All babies want to be borned!"

"Whoa! Dream big!"

But that's a story for another day. We're digressing. Again. Sorry.


As far as sex education is concerned, where I live they ONLY teach abstinence. That's it. And yet...girls still get pregnant. Kids are going to have sex whether or not people tell them what to do. It's nobody's choice but the involved parties. Maybe if the girls I knew were taught some birth control they wouldn't have a bun in the oven now.