Pregnancy Pact Leads to Contraceptives Distribution

When I was growing up in South Texas, I lived in a region where teenage pregnancy ran rampant. In fact, my childhood friend and next door neighbor had three children by the time she graduated from high school. The mere fact that I graduated high school without getting knocked up was room for celebration and awe in my neighborhood. So, when I started reading the article about 17 girls expecting babies at a high school in Gloucester a few months ago, I thought to myself, “Why is this headline news?” After all, nearly every female in my geometry class in high school was pregnant, so this article seemed trivial at first; however, when reading on that this was quadruple the pregnancies reported from the previous year, I understood why this would be alarming. According to news reports, this sleepy fishing town in Massachusetts was home to a high school pregnancy pact that has since stirred up nationwide debates on teenage pregnancy and the distribution of condoms at school.
Last October, school administrators in Gloucester started noticing an increase in the number of girls who were coming into the school clinic requesting pregnancy tests. By the end of the school year, officials noticed that many of the same girls were coming in to get frequently retested. The principal of Gloucester High School, Joseph Sullivan even reported that “some girls seemed more upset when they weren’t pregnant than when they were.” Since most high school teenagers would normally be devastated to learn they were pregnant, the attitudes of these girls tipped off officials and they began asking the girls pressing questions. They soon learned that at least half of those pregnant students had taken part in a pregnancy pact that involved the girls getting pregnant at the same time and raising their children together.
In a region that is home to many devout Catholics, the issue of how to help quell this problem is dividing the town. When the school’s nurse practitioner Kim Daly had given over 150 pregnancy tests by the end of the school year, she and Dr. Brian Orr, a pediatrician and the school clinic’s medical director, decided to begin promotion of contraceptive distribution despite not having parental consent. When parents and town officials found this out, they became enraged. The town’s mayor, Carolyn Kirk, stated, “Dr. Orr and Ms. Daly have no right to decide this for our children.” Both Orr and Daly resigned as a sign of protest at the end of May.
Residents and school officials in Gloucester felt uneasy about providing teenage students access to birth control. The chairman of the school’s committee, Greg Verga, states, “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.” At last report, the school board unanimously voted to allow the high school’s health clinic to distribute contraceptives with parental consent. The school board could also have voted on continuing their current policy of no distribution at all or they could have voted on distributing contraceptives without parental consent. It looks like they chose the “happy” medium.