Report of Gloucester pregnancy pact makes headlines
By Jillian Jorgensen, Globe Staff
The alleged pregnancy pact between several girls at Gloucester High School drew national and even international attention this week.
The Globe's Tania deLuzuriaga filed a report earlier this month that Gloucester officials were mystified by the 17 pregnancies at the school this year and alarmed by the fact that some seemed intentional. Time magazine reported this week that some of the teens had entered a pact, planning to get pregnant and raise their babies together. The story spread like wildfire.
NBC's "Today Show" offered an interview today with Christen Callahan, 18, of Gloucester, who has a three-year-old daughter. She said having a baby means "losing everything," including friends and the ability to "go out." ABC News interviewed several teen mothers, including Alycia Mazzeo, 16, of Gloucester who called her pregnancy an "unplanned blessing." On CBS's "Early Show," anchors and a psychologist discussed whether the teens had been influenced by celebrity culture and the much-publicized pregnancy of Jamie Lynn Spears, as well as movies such as "Juno" and "Knocked Up."
The story also made headlines overseas, with reports in the The Guardian and The Daily Mail in England. Hundreds of other papers and websites carried wire service reports about the pregnancies. Items about the pact were featured in news sources ranging from The New York Times to MTV News.
The story also circulated through the blogosphere, provoking commentary and coverage at Jezebel, a blog for women published by Gawker Media, and at Mother Talkers, a blog of "rants and raves on modern motherhood," among scores of other blogs.
The Jezebel blog entry opined that while the school committee was prepared to vote on whether to provide contraception at the school, they should perhaps look further.
"Comprehensive sex education, including information on birth control, disease, pregnancy, legal consequences for both parties, age of consent and what parenting entails, should probably be on the agenda as well (let alone appropriate parental involvement with their kids), but that's probably more difficult to get for these students — male and female — than [condoms] and pharmaceuticals, so I guess they'll take what they can get," the blogger wrote.
