17 Massachusetts girls may have made pact to get pregnant

In fact the problem for the Republican Party is that it is of two minds on how to deal with the poor. Fiscal Republicans, who tend to be among the better the off, want poor women to have access to the full range of family planning services, including abortion paid for by the taxpayers. Though they would never quite put this way, economic logic dictates a dead baby is cheaper than a live one born to a mother who doesn't have the means to support a child on her own.

By contrast the dominant wing of the party, religious conservatives, want to outlaw abortion. And they have, more or less, in some states such as South Dakota. What about the prospects for children born to indigent mothers? It seems their response is "not our problem." For those who believe life begins at the moment of conception, their concern seems for the child's welfare seems to end at the moment after birth.

In fact US population growth can largely be explained by immigration.

Which party crafts legislation readers would characterize as promoting strong independent families able to raise strong independent children?

What legislation were you referring to? Newt Gingrich's short-lived idea to resurrect orphanages as part of his "Contract with America"?

Communities with vibrant economies tend to also have, wonders never cease, stable families. Good things go together.

USA populations definitely going up above 304 million with pregnancy pacts. USA will jump from 4.6 percent to 5 percent of world population in fast time, more young people making babies young.

As Mike Huckabee bravely pointed out, the divorce rate is higher in red states such as his than in many blue states. He understood the impact of divorce on a child's economic welfare can be devastating and wanted an open discussion of it. This is quite different spouting platitudes about "family values."

RedMeatKoolAid,

Which party crafts legislation readers would characterize as promoting strong independent families able to raise strong independent children?

I think that depends on the readers.

I'd say that the Republicans craft legislation they characterize as promoting strong independent families, etc. I'd say that the results are far from conclusive as to whether or not this legislation has had--or even could have had--that effect.

I'd say that it was more accurate to say that Republicans craft legislation for the benefit of families with the hope that benefiting families will make them strong and politically dependent. Along the way, they seem not to have noticed that "traditional" families are a minority in America and have been for a long time.

Which party crafts legislation readers would characterize as promoting strong independent families able to raise strong independent children?

I have to go with the Republicans by and large.

Which party's values does Hollywood reflect? Is it any mystery you almost never see strong, positive male role models? How odd, how unbelievable a character like Atticus Finch would appear to these Gloucester girls.

SezWho,

I never understood the conservative outrage over It Takes a Village. While I never read it myself, I suspect neither did many of the critics. Rather it was the author which doomed the book.

The conservative position seems to be that decisions regarding child rearing should be left to the family. But what happens to kids from families that have ceased to provide a nurturing environment where children can learn from parental example? Such households are disproportionately found in declining communities which can also be socially conservative (like Gloucester) owing to tradition.

Men who are not stable income earners are poor marital prospects (everything else held constant). It seems these girls were out to create a stable group in which to raise their children since the traditional family appears to have failed them.

Betzee,

I see the quotes. I think I understand what you are saying. I just disagree that the discussion was about red and blue. In fact, I'm not even sure what red and blue positions on this issue would be.

Message boards are populated with many who bring their attitude kit to social issues without having anything substantive to say about those issues. We might as well expect teenage girls to stop becoming pregnant as to expect partisan comments to cease. I don't see the point in complaining about failure to speak to the issue unless one is willing to speak to the issue oneself.

Personally, I don't think there is much to be said about this. These girls would seem to have chosen a hard route for themselves--and for their parents and children too. However, the girls who made the pregnancy pact may be on to something. Certainly, free market advocates advance the notion that we make intelligent choices based on the information known to us.

In many respects, the reference to "It Takes A Village" is perfectly apt. One can speculate, for example, on whether Gloucester is a village which is working or not. We can ask, if it is not working, why isn't it working? And we can zoom in and out on our definition of "a village". But all social questions, barring mass collective epiphany, will have their solutions in the political realm.

Notice how many 'spokespersons' the seventeen girls have out there explaining their behavior...

Yeah, and you were one of 'em. Whereas I simply backed up the chief executive of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

In fact they might well follow the Republican example of blaming someone else. After all, to admit error is a sign of weakness and that trumps "personal responsibility" every time.

The answer? No one will ever be allowed to hear directly from these girls why they made the choices they did. It will be "society's fault." The last thing that "liberals" want is for those whom they designate as "victims" to explain or even examine cause and effect in their lives. Notice how many 'spokespersons' the seventeen girls have out there explaining their behavior...

Teen pregnancy, and ways to discourage it, have been an ongoing concern for a while. One theory is to preach abstinance, the other is to make kids aware of contraception options. But in the case of girls who want to become pregnant none of that would have any effect.

Are we really trying to make some sort of value judgment of society based on a group of dumbass girls in a fishing village?

People have always done stupid stuff. This is not a frightening sign of the new direction that society has taken in modern times. It IS a sign that people are dumb, and that sometimes, they're dumb in groups. Why this merits more than a shrug of the shoulders genuinely perplexes me.

When I was a kid, a neighbor broke into my house while my family was away. The cops caught them. Apparently, one guy kept saying "this ain't for me," then tried to walk out on the guy questioning him. He genuinely seemed to think they would let him go simply because he wasn't enjoying himself.

Was this a sign of how severely society had declined...in 1975? Or was this guy just a dumbass?

"young libs are propagating their kind"

That's more like Hillary Clinton's It Takes a Village than the movie Juno.

These were countered with suggestions Reagan and GWB were more responsible as jobs requiring few skills which paid a decent living disappeared under their watch.

In sum, there was an attempt to make it into a partisan issue and that's what SuperLib appeared to be taking issue with.

Remember back in 1992 when Dan Quayle complained "Murphy Brown [a 40-something TV character who becomes a single mother] had become a lifestyle choice"? It's unclear what he was objecting to; the prospect that men had become irrelevant to women and children, the absence of fathers from children's lives, or something else. At that same time, he declared his then teenage daughter would never have an abortion leaving one to wonder what solution, and how much say she would have in it, he saw to such a predicament.

The breakdown of the nuclear family is due to a number of causes which are difficult to locate as the fault of one side or the other. The prospect of a welfare check, back in the days when welfare was open-ended, but also social acceptance of unwed motherhood. The rate of out of wedlock pregnancy in the 1950s usually shocks people because girls in such a situation were hustled off to give birth in a place that would not bring shame to their families. Present-day Gloucester, by contrast, seems set up for it, providing childcare facilities for student mothers.

Betzee,

I don't see any attempt to make either side responsible. I couldn't tell what SuperLib was talking about.

Teenage pregnancy is a social problem. It is true that women will bear the direct burden of the pregnancy, in carrying the baby, in birthing it, and in terms of responsibility--whether shirked, shouldered, or delegated--for its upbringing. But I don't see how that makes it less of a political issue.

Tending to the needs of a newborn 24/7 is mentally and physically draining, even when you're emotionally mature and have a partner to support you.

Indeed. All those perfectly coiffed celebrity Moms are in a position to hire household help (whether they have partners or not). The amount of coverage devoted to celebrity Moms is staggering (and the help is never shown). It all presents an escapist fantasy into a world of luxury which most of us will never experience personally.

Betzee and Triumvere, I made the incorrect assumption that the girls saw having a baby as a way to get their own home and money from the state. If they did it to ape celebrities or to make up from a lack of love and affection in their lives, they are in for a very rude awakening. Tending to the needs of a newborn 24/7 is mentally and physically draining, even when you're emotionally mature and have a partner to support you.

SezWho,

Most of us can agree this path that these girls are going down is an unwise one. What SuperLib was objecting to was the witch hunt to find the other side responsible. I agree.

Several months ago on this site I was upbraided for even using the word "abortion" (notice it's absent from my posts) since the mere mention of the term gets opponents all worked up. I've had some talks about this with a very conservative female member of my family who is nonetheless pro-choice and she said, "No, let's not sugarcoat it." Then again, we don't know anyone, man or woman, who is not pro-choice.

We shouldn't shy away from the tragic aspects of an unwanted pregnancy, few of those who have abortions are left unscathed by the experience, while acknowledging that the burden of tragedy is borne largely by women. In this case the burden of childcare will be born by them since the fathers of these in utero babies don't even seem to be in the picture.

presto345 - "No, they have been misled."

No, getting pregnant to a homeless guy is thick to every extent of the word.

I'm hearing "Battling Banjo's" as BGM of this article...

SuperLib,

Teenage pregnancy is a political issue--among other things. Political issues that touch upon it are abortion, child welfare, family subsidies, medical care and so on. In this case, I think you would have to add education and access to economic alternatives.

There certainly are other issue that seem to come into play, for example morality, humanitarian concern the child and its mother and so on. But the solutions to these "care and concern" issues are usually found in the political sphere or else left haphazardly to charity.

These poor girls how absolutely no idea of what they are in for. I certainly hope that these kids' kids make out ok.

I doubt that this is some sort of welfare scheme; most likely the girls come from unhappy homes, and they want a baby so that they will have someone to love, someone which will love them back. With the pact the are trying to create a "family" which will provide them with the support and recognition they crave.

None of this, of course, changes the fact that this was a horribly bad idea, completely detached from the realities of the situation. High fives all round!

Reading the Village Voice is a means to hone one's critical thinking skills and expand one's vocabulary. Being saturated by celebrity gossip, by contrast, doesn't do much for either. And neither does reading your posts RedMeatKooLaid!

Does the benefit system in the states work the same way?

No, families can only receive welfare for five years. I think it's doubtful girls this young consider the long-term financial consequences of early parenthood. [Though] Gloucester — a heavily Roman Catholic town with a large Italian and Portuguese population — has long been supportive of teen mothers. The high school has a day care center for students and employees.

There's a class element in all of this. American girls from all socio-economic backgrounds get pregnant, but rarely do those from upper middle class families carry them to term. I do know of one high school which is highly ranked for its academics in which a girl did decide to follow the path of Juno, namely put the baby up for adoption. The principal called her parents to implore she make the other choice; he emphasized how bad this was for the school's reputation to have pregnant students. Teenage pregnancy and academic achievement usually don't go together.

In the UK dropping a sprog is a career choice for some young women. It means they will never have to work and yet be financially better off than some people working 40 hours a week on minimum wage. Does the benefit system in the states work the same way? That could explain the girls decision. Either that or they aspire to the Jamie Lynn Spears lifestyle.

The young womyn of Gloucester need the kind of moral guidance found in the Village Voice!

"Juno" (the movie in question) isn't about a girl who gets pregnant and has a great time of it.

As a review in the Village Voice about the slew of movies which depict girls/women who find unexpectedly find themselves expectin' observes:

[T]he hyper-articulate 15-year-old hipster improbably named Juno [is] unable to express why [she] feels obliged to give birth to [an] unplanned and unwanted baby. She has no choice and she has no say. It is simply her fate.

[If] little Juno were planning a welfare scam to fund her alt-rock band or simply wanted to gross out the neighbors, the narrative would still function, but now with the added aspect of free will.

By contrast the girls in this story are choosing to have babies despite lacking the means to raise them. They don't compare themselves to Juno but to Angelina Jolie.

For a long time people have put the blame for all manner of social problems on Hollywood celebrities. Of course they have the right to live their lives as they please. I think the problem is more a matter of putting celebrities, who are rich and beautiful, on a pedestal. "Celebrity" is a creation of American culture fed by shows like E!

Moreover, in popular culture, smart teens are rarely portrayed as attractive; instead they are geeky, social misfits.

these girls seem pretty thick...

No, they have been misled. But by who or what . . . that is the mystery right now.

I understand my words may be construed as being a bit blunt, but these girls seem pretty thick...

I can see that the parents raised these girls with a lot of self-cofidence, love, a sense of being and so many other morale qualities. < :-)

They don´t mention the social status of the girls, but let me go on limb and suggest that they don`t come from traditional (meaning: complete) families. More likely, they have learned from their and their friends single moms that making babies is a way to make a living and and identy for themselves. The modern welfare society has created this.

I didn't know you could make teen pregnancy a political issue, but it looks like I stand corrected. Bravo. I guess some really can't see anything besides red and blue.

"Some of the girls may have made a pact to have babies and raise them together."

That's more like Hillary Clinton's It Takes a Village than the movie Juno.

"Juno" (the movie in question) isn't about a girl who gets pregnant and has a great time of it. It's about a girl who gets pregnant and the hardships she endures because of it, like the father being deficient in the support department, to becoming an outcast at school, to considering giving the child up for adoption. Doesn't sound glamorus to me.

I am sure in due time, there will be a movie portraying these nutty girls as hero.

God forbid, if one of those were my daughter.

Jahdog,

I don't think Bush and Reagan where what the teens were thinking about when they decided they wanted a baby.

Gloucester — a heavily Roman Catholic town...Just last month, two officials at the high school health center resigned to protest the local hospital’s refusal to support a proposal to distribute contraceptives to youngsters at the school without parental consent. The hospital controls the clinic’s funding..."absent the support and the guidance, it can become almost a default option for some to become a mom,” and then there's "the nation’s Hollywood-obsessed culture, in which stories about pregnant celebrities abound."

W's faith-based, abstinence-only programs--they're working! http://www.jesuscampthemovie.com/ Check this part where everyone starts speaking in tongues (does "some warfare over him"?) to bless a cardboard cutout of W: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PUQATCcQ0A

"young libs are propagating their kind"? Dude, first, not everyone in MA is a liberal; second, "their kind"?

Gloucester ("Glosta") has undergone what other cities in the US have experienced since Reagan: retreat to religion, and retreat from rationality, after a factory or industry dies, welfare programs have been cut.

The W administration is the most conservative regime of the past century, during which federal consumer, environmental and worker protection laws and have been dismantled, programs for the poor have been cut. Meanwhile, there's been an increase in crony capitalism, corporate scandals, tax breaks for the wealthy, and the merging of Church and State--it's like the Anti-American Way or something, and W, portrayed as some kind of haloed leader in the run-up to the '04 election, he's the anti...the antithesis of truth, justice and the American way. Look at this www.merriam-webster.com definition of blasphemy http://www.abde.net/images/unmedia/bush-lord.jpg

"A carefully constructed news item is released to the media knowing full well the pictures the TV outlets will run with it." http://perdurabo10.tripod.com/themindofjamesdonahue/id580.html

“We have fallen on hard times,” Kirk said of her city, which has suffered in recent decades with the decline in the fishing industry that has defined Gloucester since the colonial era.

This should deter teenage parenthood. But in the warped values which prevail in today's society, it is the key to a young woman's identity. In California adult men who impregnant underage girls are prosecuted for rape.

Sarah Brown, chief executive of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, suggested some of the blame lies with the nation’s Hollywood-obsessed culture, in which stories about pregnant celebrities abound.

I would have to agree with this. I scan such magazines, and there's more than just People, about once a month while waiting to have my hair cut. Many provide detailed coverage of celebrity spawning. It makes parenthood come across as glamorous to those who have nothing in common with well-paid entertainers.

However, here's a list of the states with the highest teen pregnancy for those wanting to play red state/blue state. 1) Nevada 2) Arizona 3) Mississippi 4) New Mexico 5) Texas 6) Florida 7) California 8) Georgia 9) North Carolina 10) Arkansas

Taka

SezWho2:

Good one.

So as not to exclude the judiciary: The Massachusettes Supreme Court will legislate from the bench that all such pacts must be honored once entered into.

Not to worry. The president will interrupt his vacation and hurry to Washington to veto the measure in order to protect the culture of life.

Now that this has hit the news I'm sure congress will be holding multiple hearings followed by new laws to "restrict pregnancy pacts by minors". Money will also be appropriated in the billions of dollars to stop this epidimic.

I've had. This is my last straw. What ever happened to common sense?

I heard that one of the girls got herself pregnant by some homeless guy.

I don't ever want to go back to the States.

Well, this proves my notion that immorality, immaturity, and overall breakdown in social norms is ocurring all over the world amongst our youth.