Teenage Pregnancy

In yesterday’s daily article, I wrote about the War on Abstinence being waged by Planned Parenthood and the ACLU. At the top of the Drudge Report this morning are news reports from Gloucester, Massachusetts, about seventeen girls—-all under the age of sixteen—-who made a pact to become pregnant together.

Not surprisingly, the Time magazine story pushes Catholicism as the problem and contraception as the answer right in the second paragraph: “The question of what to do next has divided this fiercely Catholic enclave. Even with national data showing a 3% rise in teen pregnancies in 2006—the first increase in 15 years—Gloucester isn’t sure it wants to provide easier access to birth control.”

But there was no contraception failure here. Nor was limited access to contraception the cause. These were intentional teen-age pregnancies—-something a comprehensive sex-ed program doesn’t speak to. It appears that the students saw childbearing and rearing as a means to finally discovering unconditional love:

Amanda Ireland, who graduated from Gloucester High on June 8, thinks she knows why these girls wanted to get pregnant. Ireland, 18, gave birth her freshman year and says some of her now pregnant schoolmates regularly approached her in the hall, remarking how lucky she was to have a baby. “They’re so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally,” Ireland says. “I try to explain it’s hard to feel loved when an infant is screaming to be fed at 3 a.m.”

This seems in keeping with the fascinating book that came out a few years ago by Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas, Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage .

How will Planned Parenthood and the ACLU—-with their emphasis that sexual autonomy rules the day—-persuade these women that putting marriage before motherhood is the way to go?