How bizarre

Gloucester, Mass. has made headlines lately because of some bizarre pact among several of its high school girls to become pregnant and raise their babies together. The high school principal was the one who broke the news of the pact, but now it appears that it may not be true - the principal is hazy on details, and one of the pregnant girls, Lindsey Oliver, has come forward to deny that there was a pact. She said most of the girls were already pregnant when they made a pact to help each other raise their kids and stay in school.

Whether or not there was a pact to get pregnant, this issue highlights a problem that the entire country faces. Texas has the highest rate of teen pregnancy and births in the country. Sadly, we also have the highest number of second births to teenagers. So glad we spend millions on abstinency-only education.

One quote from a Time article yesterday really struck me:

Some described the pregnant teens as having little parental supervision. "They could stay out all night if they wanted," says a classmate...

Certainly a lack of parental attention and involvement plays into the story. But then I was reminded of how Jamie Lynn Spears's mother reacted when she found out her 15-year-old daughter was pregnant. She was shocked, claiming that her daughter was always a "good girl" who was never late for curfew.

So it turns out that girls can get pregnant if their parents are paying attention, or not; at 2 a.m. or 2 p.m.; whether they're "good girls" or...you get the drift.

Clearly, the conversation isn't being had about safe sex, and that's the problem.

The 17-year-old Lindsey Oliver really gets it:

She said there's more of a problem with schools not providing contraceptives to teens.

"Well, I think that they sit there and they say that they want to make a difference and it's awful that all these kids are getting pregnant, but they don't want to do anything to help them. They won't put contraceptives in the nurse's office or anything and no kid wants to go into the store and buy them, or like, ask them mom to help them get birth control. Like, it's embarrassing. So, instead of, like, making them make the decision not to use any of them, they should be giving them out in the nurse's office so you can get it anonymously," Oliver said.

She said the argument that providing contraceptives encourages teens to have sex doesn't make sense.

"The kids are obviously having it anyway. There are 17 pregnant girls. I mean, they're not going to stop it by not giving them anything. They're only going to make matters worse," she said.

Out of the mouths of babes.

UPDATE: Check out The Rev. Debra Haffner's piece about this issue.