Pregnancy pact shows lack of judgement

A group of 17 girls, who attend Glouscester High School in Massachusetts, are all expecting babies. At least half of the girls, none older than 16, had a pregnancy pact so they could raise their kids together.

This is the craziest mess I've heard in a very long time!

Why would anyone want to be a teenage, unwed mother? These girls obviously don't understand how hard and expensive it is to raise kids. And they clearly don't realize that their silly pact has changed the course of their lives forever. Will they graduate from high school? Go off to college? Leave Gloucester to experience life somewhere else? Probably not, unless their parents take full responsibility in raising these babies. Every decision they make from now on will depend on those babies.

A Glouscester student, Amanda Ireland, who graduated June 8, got pregnant her freshman year. She told a Time Magazine reporter that some of the girls in the pact made comments to her about how lucky she is to have someone to unconditionally love her. Ireland believes that's why the girls vowed to get pregnant.

Um, get a dog. Don't have a baby just because you want someone to love you!

I feel sorry these girls felt so unloved that they wanted to have babies when they're just babies themselves. I can't imagine what that feels like - I was raised in a home with two supportive parents. I wished these girls would have talked with a counselor, older sister or aunt before intentionally getting pregnant. This was a plan with no planning.

And what about the boys? Of course, most of the responsibility will fall on the mothers, but the fathers' lives will also be forever changed. While the mothers may be sitting at home, the boys can move on with their lives - after graduation they can head to college and eventually get a good job. But they will be paying - literally - for their mistakes for the next 18 years. Sadly, one of the fathers is a homeless 24-year-old.

The school board in this fishing town is considering making contraceptives available to students, but that won't stop the girls who want to get pregnant.

I wish nothing but the best for these 17 girls, but they're about the learn a very hard lesson: At 4 a.m. when that baby, who unconditionally loves her, is crying and the young mother can't figure out why, the mother will probably be regretting the pregnancy pact.