A Perfectly Planned Pregnancy
January 25, 2010 • By Elizabeth Baugh, The Breeze
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Lifetime Movie Fails to Address Realities of Teen Sex and Pregnancy
Saturday night’s debut of the Lifetime original movie “The Pregnancy Pact” has revived the story of the 2008 teen pregnancy spike at Gloucester High School in Massachusetts.
When it came time for summer vacation, 18 girls at the Gloucester High School were pregnant. The spike in pregnancies caused school officials to look into the matter. After the story broke to the media, Principal Joseph Sullivan told Time magazine that a group of girls formed a pact to all get pregnant at the same time. As the story received international attention, residents of Gloucester tried to decipher between fiction and reality. The truth of the pact’s existence has never been revealed to the public.
Now, the story once sensationalized by the media has been unnecessarily retold in the form of a Lifetime movie. Still sensationalized, the movie glorifies the coverage of this story with its previews, countdown to the premiere and advertisements making the lifestyle of a teen mom seem glamorous.
It starts by stating it is “inspired” by a true story, but watching the movie, one is completely swayed to believe without a doubt the pact existed. The fictitious portrayal includes a group of girls scheming to have babies and tricking everyone around them into believing this is a good idea.
The idea of passing out contraceptives in school was only briefly discussed in the movie, and the conservative parents preaching abstinence never fully recognized that it might not be the best approach. Even as their daughters got pregnant, the movie ends with the parents trying to come up with a better way to get the abstinence message across. While I recognize the importance of teaching abstinence to teens, wouldn’t you think that after you discover your child is sexually active, a more appropriate and logical lesson would include birth control options?
Teen pregnancy was depicted as far more glamorous than it really is. The majority of the movie was spent making pregnancy into a cute, fun way to get your boyfriend to never leave and love you forever. However, http://teenpregnancy.org says that of the estimated 750,000 teen pregnancies yearly, 81 percent are to unmarried teens. It also states that teen mothers are more likely to drop out of high school and remain a single parent, which were factors the girls in the movie seemed to think would never happen. It was only until the last bit of the movie, where the character Rose has her baby — resulting in 38 stitches, morphine shots and continuous cries of “It hurts! It hurts!” — that the girls begin to question their little game. Even then, they don’t really seem to care, it’s still all about whether or not the boy will speak to them, or how much beer they could drink without having a damaging effect on the baby. The characters still think they will get the perfect life of marriage and baby makes three.
While watching the movie, my roommates and I realized what’s detrimental is that the storyline never really offers a solution. No one considers adoption, and each girl’s parents are very nonchalant about their daughters getting knocked-up at 15. The discussion of contraceptives doesn’t come up again, and the fact that the high school offers a day care inside (it did in real life, too) gives girls the impression there are many easy ways out.
There are solutions to educating teens about safe sex — starting with good communication among teens, parents and teachers — which should have been an important aspect of the movie. My roommates found it necessary to text their little sisters (who are coincidentally 15 and were watching with groups of girls) and remind them to talk to someone about sex, practice abstinence or use birth control and most importantly, that it’s not cute to make a pact to get pregnant with your friends.
If Lifetime was really trying to convey a message, and with multiple public service announcements throughout its airing, then producers really missed the mark. “The Pregnancy Pact” is just a way to capitalize on a shocking story and make it into melodramatic entertainment, without accurately portraying the complex issues of teenage pregnancy.
Elizabeth Baugh is a junior media arts and design major and Opinion editor at The Breeze.
Contact Elizabeth Baugh at breezeopinion@gmail.com
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4 Responses to “A Perfectly Planned Pregnancy”
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I will have to say I disagree on your opinion of the movie. I don’t think it glorified teen pregnancy in any way. I think it clearly showed that things were not going to be as great as the soon to be mothers thought. They did speak of adoption with the character Rose and I really don’t think they could have delved further into how difficult it is to be a teen mother without making it some sort of documentary and following an actual teen mother around 24/7 to show the late night feedings, working your tail off and being completely worn out (not enough time for a Lifetime Movie). I feel that the moral of the story came across quite nicely in the end, which is after all, when the moral usually becomes clear. The main character realizing that she must step-up to the plate and grow up and realizing that her “happily ever after” is not going to turn out quite as she had hoped, however, life does go on……..
i know how it is! its going to be hard the next 9 months but once u get it out of you belly you will feel a 100 times better then you did carrying it i bet you that but just hold on evrything wil be just fine just hold on ok do your best i loved this movie but i really do think that the daddys of theses babys should have stayed around they put the baby in there girlfriends belly they need to help raise that kid
I disagree as well, I don’t believe lifetime glorified the movie at all. The character Sydney, throughout the entire movie, was pushing for contraceptives and gave a completely different side to what the girls thought teen pregnancy was about. In the end, the parents did realize that they should be doing something more to prevent their daughters from getting pregnant and I believe at the end, the mother does support giving contraceptives out in health rooms etc. The lifetime movie does it’s best to replicate the story, but it is a LIFETIME MOVIE. You can’t go in expecting it to be fabulous. I believe it sent a clear message, like Catrina said, at the end where Sarah says that she has to grow up and it’s not going to be easy. If you listen closely to the dialogue throughout the movie, even the parents ask themselves how they will pay for it, what will they do? “The health insurance won’t cover it.” I’m not saying it was a great movie, but it didn’t give the message that teen pregnancy is something to glorify or look up to. It’s a challenge that girls shouldn’t have to face at 16 and something needs to be done about it.
I think that the entire point of the movie was for people to see how naive the girls really were. Any educated person hears the girls talking about how exciting is to get pregnant and just rolls thier eyes cause everyone knows that having a baby at 15 is anything but glamorous. Maybe if the story would have started at different point, after the girls had already had their babies, it would have conveyed a stronger message.