Laura Berman

America's pregnancy infatuation dangerous

The "baby pact" may be more legend than fact, but even the idea of 17 Gloucester, Mass., high school girls getting pregnant en masse carries a bracing whiff of reality.

What's true, without contest, is that the school's pregnancy rate soared this year, with 17 sophomore girls, ages 15 and 16, expecting babies.

Whether or not they made a group commitment to get pregnant is murky.

Less so is the emerging teen view: Like a poodle in a purse, some of today's teens are more likely to see a baby as a "hot" accessory than a drastic choice statistically likely to keep them in poverty.

It took my first-grader three days to learn last fall that Jamie Lynn Spears, Britney's sister and then-Disney TV show star, was pregnant. "Mom, Jamie Lynn is having a baby and she's a teenager," she said at the time, proving that key information travels at warp speed, even in elementary school.

Teens as role models

To a 6-year-old, the word "teenager" is a synonym for role model -- for the glamorous, aspired-to next step of life that must be studied and imitated. And it's true that Jamie Lynn -- whose personal drama dovetails with Gloucester's school for scandal -- is an easy target for postpartum scorn.

But American culture's current infatuation with babies and pregnancy isn't cute, and the girls in Gloucester, who are now the objects of worldwide attention, are facing consequences they couldn't possibly have expected.

Celebrity magazines like People and Us have seized on Hollywood babies and pregnancies as a market staple: They salute the baby bumps and maternity gear with an intensity that used to be reserved for bulimia outbreaks or alcoholic confessionals.

Married or single, celebrities have babies without the economic and social consequences faced by teenagers in an economically distressed area: When you're Angelina Jolie, expecting twins is just another reason to buy a new dress to wear to the Cannes Film Festival and hire a new nanny.

It's also a ticket to a People cover.

Celebrating births

The kids in Gloucester High School knew about contraception: They were the beneficiaries of a real sex education program.

According to the school's principal, as told to Time magazine, these babies-on-the-way weren't accidents.

But let's face it: We don't celebrate responsible planning the way we do birthing babies. But single, teenage mothers are at high risk for future poverty, not a People cover.

Lori Lamerand, the chief executive of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Michigan, describes "a general attitude that pregnancy is something that happens to people and not that people take as a life-altering opportunity. You have to value that planning."

If the girls of Gloucester, Mass., didn't understand that months ago, they are getting the idea now.