The Pact

by Julia Kaye, Health Policy Associate, and Taryn Wilgus Null, MARGARET Fund Fellow
National Women’s Law Center

The number of pregnant teens at Gloucester High School in Massachusetts has quadrupled since last year. Though the national teen pregnancy rate has also risen, by 3 percent in 2006 — the first increase in 14 years — the principal of Gloucester High was certain that the disproportionate number of pregnancies (17) at his school of 1,200 didn’t just reflect a national trend. So he went looking for answers.

Turns out that nearly half of the expecting students — none older than 16 — had taken a pledge to become pregnant and raise their children together. The teens were high-fiving each other upon receiving positive results of their pregnancy tests.

How to explain this troubling phenomenon? Some blame the fishing city’s struggling economy. “This is a city in transition going through a hard economic time,” noted Mayor Carolyn Kirk. “There are cuts in economic programs, cuts in services, cuts in after-school programs, and they’re all impacting the social climate. We really let these kids down.” Maybe it’s true that in a downtrodden economic environment, where adolescent females are given little reason to hope for a fulfilling academic or professional life, they apply their ambition, dedication and hope to a goal that seems achievable — pregnancy.

“The Pact” is a window into the psychology of young women in this type of socioeconomic situation. Their pressing need to take control of their bodies and their future, the desire for sisterhood implicit in their plan to raise their children together — both suggest that these young women were looking for empowerment more than motherhood. Principal Joseph Sullivan noted that “some girls seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant than when they were." Undoubtedly, one source of their unhappiness was that their dreams of a joint baby shower with their classmates weren’t yet coming true. And we could talk about how teen pregnancy has become “trendy” among the celebrity crowd; I mean, all the cool kids these days are doing it (See: Spears, Jamie Lynn). But I would guess that they were most frustrated — as are, surely, many women who decide to have a child but then struggle to get pregnant — with the fact that their bodies weren’t listening to them. That their best laid plans weren’t coming to pass. That they were helpless ... again.

This story might have turned out differently if these young women had been taught to believe that they had many options before them. If they had better understood that it is often easier to fit motherhood into a fulfilling adult life than to build a fulfilling adult life around young motherhood. If they had been taught, in comprehensive sex education classes, that by delaying sexual initiation and using contraception when they do decide to become sexually active, women can make sure that they are in stable financial, physical and social situations before becoming pregnant — and in that way take control of their lives and their health. Indeed, Gloucester teens must travel about 20 miles to reach the nearest women's health clinic, and contraception is not available at the school’s student clinic without parental consent — a critical concern for many teens, and one that could prevent them from seeking care.

Furthermore, the school seems not to recognize that giving teens access to contraception and information about family planning encourages them to make informed and healthy decisions about their sexual health and about their lives, broadly. When Kim Daly, the chief nurse practitioner at the high school’s clinic, and Dr. Brian Orr, the clinic’s medical director, began advocating to prescribe contraceptives regardless of parental consent (a practice that occurs at 15 Massachusetts public high schools), they were met with criticism and ultimately resigned in protest. No final decision has been made yet — Gloucester's elected school committee will vote later this summer on whether the clinic should provide contraceptives.

The school seems to do an admirable job of supporting pregnant and parenting students and encouraging them to remain in school and graduate, and we disagree with the way the school’s treatment of pregnant and parenting students is portrayed in TIME Magazine, which noted that “The high school has done perhaps too good a job of embracing young mothers [emphasis added].” While teen pregnancies may not be ideal, it is critical that young mothers be able to graduate from high school and get jobs that enable them to care for themselves and their children. High school dropouts are far more likely to be unemployed and earn significantly lower wages than high school graduates. For young parents, who must care for their children in addition to themselves, a high school diploma is especially vital for self-sufficiency. So the school’s support of pregnant and parenting teens is a positive step towards expanding opportunities for young mothers.

But if the school could also give students the information, resources and confidence to delay pregnancy until after they’d completed their education — and inspire them to look forward to a life that may include motherhood but does not view motherhood as the only path to fulfillment — who knows what these young women might have come together and pledged to achieve instead?

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