Pregnancy Boom at Gloucester High - TIME

I'm astonished to read above linked story about a group of seventeen high school girls that decided to get pregnant together at a high school in Massachusetts.

The girls made a deal to get pregnant and raise their babies together. Unfortunately few of them seem to have taken as much time to plan their life as they did getting knocked up. One of them is pregnant by a 24 year old homeless man.

By all accounts the Gloucester area is economically struggling and it seems like some of the families are floundering as well. The value of education, family planning and respecting yourself are all seeds planted at home. A child that can be dragged into this pact is a child who needs more from their parents, not to become a parent.

The school is paying a price for their folly - and the actions of those young students pregnant in the past. There is a daycare center on site and a culture that accepts these young women and their children. Of course there is a great value and even a 'return on investment' for helping young women with children grow up to be educated and good parents. It is far better to spend that money on pregnant teens to keep them off welfare and keep their children out of social services - not to mention just that protecting young children is the right thing to do. But at what point does helping those who have made a mistake become enabling those who are making bad decisions on purpose? These girls were celebrating being pregnant as a group.

Humorously two school clinic officials were disciplined for giving out birth control without parent approval, which is acceptable under the law there and does happen at other area schools but was not school board policy in that school system.

Perhaps we can guess that the nurse and doctor at the clinic were so frustrated with giving 150 pregnancy tests to a student body that included about 600 girls that they decided they had to do something to try to stem the tide. The nearest free clinic is 20 minutes from the school and they decided to try to do whatever they could.

That of course upset the town's mayor who felt the pair, "have no right to decide this for our children."

I hope the best for those children-to-be but I suspect these young women, their parents, school officials and rest of the community will pay a very steep price for this very serious game they've played.