Jun 23, 2008 7:47 pm US/Eastern
Gloucester Mayor: Can't Confirm Pregnancy Pact
GLOUCESTER (WBZ) ―
The mayor of Gloucester said Monday there is no evidence a group of young girls made a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together.
"We have not been able to confirm the existence of a pact," Mayor Carolyn Kirk told reporters at an afternoon news conference, seeking to dispel an explosive theory put forth by the high school principal. "We are seeking to understand whether it's based in rumor or in fact."
"Any planned blood oath bond to become pregnant -- there is absolutely no evidence of," Kirk said after a closed-door meeting with city, school and health leaders.
Conspicuously absent from that meeting was Gloucester High School Principal Joseph Sullivan, who has not responded to repeated requests for comment after he was quoted last week in a
Time magazine story saying the girls planned to get pregnant together.
"I wasn't comfortable having the principal here because I haven't been able to get verification on his statements," she said.
Kirk cited privacy concerns in refusing to answer many questions about the 17 girls who had become pregnant this school year -- more than quadruple the number who generally become pregnant as the school.
Kirk said she and Superintendent Christopher Farmer have been in touch with Sullivan, and that he was "foggy in his memory" about how he came to believe there was a pact.
"When pressed, his memory failed," Kirk said.
Authorities have talked to school and health officials who work most closely with the children and, Kirk said, "The people that worked with the children on a daily basis have said there has been no mention whatsoever of a pact."
Kirk said the spike in pregnancies is in keeping with similar spikes in other cities.
Farmer said there was a "distinct possibility" that the girls who found themselves in similar, challenging situations later decided to "come together for mutual support."
He said the Time magazine piece did not distinguish between "a pact to become pregnant or a pact because we are pregnant."
Farmer also said it was clear some of the girls were not trying very hard to keep from getting pregnant.
"There were a group of girls who were being pregnancy tested, with irregularities that would lead to the conclusion… that they were not trying very hard not to get pregnant," Farmer said.
The principal had said some girls gave high-fives and planned baby showers while others were sullen if their pregnancy tests at the high school clinic came back negative.
"We understand that some of them expressed pleasure at being pregnant," Farmer confirmed.
Farmer defended Sullivan saying, "I don't believe anyone has acted in particularly bad faith here."
That wasn't enough for Annette Dion, a 45-year-old private music teacher, who said school and city officials should have done more to find out whether the girls truly made a pregnancy pact. She said denying such a pact existed is "pretty naive."
"I don't think we heard the truth today," Dion said, adding that pop culture has glamorized teen pregnancy and that movies and celebrity pregnancies do not give girls an accurate picture of parenthood.
"My personal feeling, my impression, is they probably talked and discussed and thought it would be cool to get pregnant together," she said.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
