US schoolgirl pregnancy pact linked to Oscar-winner Juno
Friday, 20 Jun 2008 11:13
Teen pregnancy pact linked with Oscar-winning comedy Juno
An apparent pregnancy pact in a United States fishing town has been linked with Oscar-winning comedy Juno, after 17 teenage girls fell pregnant.
Former blogger Diablo Cody won a best original screenplay Oscar for the independent film last year, telling of a wise-cracking teenage girl (Ellen Page) who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant and decides to give her child up for adoption.
And as the summer holidays begin at Gloucester High School in Massachusetts, some 17 students are expecting a baby - four times as many as in 2007 - which bemused staff believe could be due to the popularity of Juno.
But while the pregnancies might have seemed an intriguing coincidence, an investigation by Time magazine found that the girls had made a pact, with some of them reportedly celebrating the news of their impending motherhood with high fives.
School principal Joseph Sullivan explained that teachers had grown suspicious as early as October when a number of girls began requesting pregnancy tests and by May, certain girls had requested multiple checks.
"Some girls seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant than when they were," he told the magazine.
And after questioning the students, nearly half of the girls - none of whom are older than 16 - admitted to having made a pact to fall pregnant at the same time, so as to raise their babies as a group.
"We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy," the principal added.
Films such as Juno and Knocked Up - which feature young unwed mothers - have been linked with the pregnancy pact while some school officials believe the collapse of the local fisheries industry, which has left many families poverty-stricken, has left youngsters bored and choosing pregnancy as a distraction.
But according to Amanda Ireland, a recent graduate from Gloucester High who gave birth while a student, the 17 girls involved in the pact are desperate for attention.
"They're so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally," she commented.
"I try to explain it's hard to feel loved when an infant is screaming to be fed at 3am." 