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Gloucester mayor: No proof of pregnancy pact

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 not to become pregnant. 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.

Farmer defended Sullivan, saying, “I don’t believe anyone has acted in particularly bad faith here.”

Gloucester resident Annette Dion, a 45-year-old private music teacher, said school and city officials should have done more to find out whether the girls truly made a pact to become pregnant. She said denying such a pact existed is “pretty naïve.”

“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.

Brendan Henry, a 17-year-old going into his senior year at Gloucester, said the attention surrounding the alleged pact has taken the focus off bigger issues facing young people, including school under-funding. Still, he did not doubt that a pact could have existed.

“It definitely sounds like something that would happen at Gloucester High School,” he said. “It doesn’t sound too far fetched at all.”

(Associated Press)

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