Teen girl pregnancy pact?

Few recent stories about teen pregnancy have been so compelling as the item that surfaced in June 2008 in Time magazine, and was then zoomed around the world’s media post haste. The location is Gloucester, Massachusetts – America’s oldest seaport. The venue is Gloucester High School. The protagonists are a 17-strong group of girls, aged 14–16 years, who over the past calendar year have become pregnant. The interest? First, this figure is much greater than the usual number (i.e. 4–10) of annual pregnancies at Gloucester High. Second, school principal Joseph Sullivan is quoted as saying that several of the pregnancies were due to a ‘pact’ between the girls. Cue media frenzy.