Teens had a pact to get pregnant

BOSTON. A group of teenage girls at Gloucester High School formed a pact to get pregnant and raise their children together, according to a report in the latest issue of Time magazine.

By May, school officials had discovered 17 girls — none older than 16 years old — were pregnant, more than four times the number who got pregnant in the last school year. But principal Joseph Sullivan told Time that between October and May, an unusual number of girls were visiting the school clinic to get pregnancy tests. They found that nearly half of the students admitted to making the pact.

Sullivan reportedly said “some girls seemed more upset when they weren’t pregnant than when they were,” and that some “reacted to the news that they were pregnant with high fives and plans for baby showers.”

“We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy,” the principal told the magazine.

The situation also led to a nurse practitioner and the clinic’s medical director resigning after they advocated prescribing contraceptives to students. The town’s school committee is expected to vote later this summer on the idea of providing such contraceptives.