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R/£ Girl denies principal's claim of pregnancy pact
June 25, 2008 Edition 4
Gloucester, Massachusetts - A pregnant high school pupil has disputed her principal's headline-grabbing theory that girls in this New England fishing town had made a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together.
"There was definitely no pact," Lindsey Oliver (17) told Good Morning America yesterday. "There was a group of girls already pregnant who decided they were going to help each other to finish school and raise their kids together. I think it was just a coincidence."
Mayor Carolyn Kirk also denied a pact existed after a closed-door meeting with city, school and health leaders on Monday. Absent from that meeting was 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.
Kirk cited privacy concerns in refusing to answer questions about the 17 girls who became pregnant this school year, more than four times the number who generally become pregnant. She said she had been in touch with Sullivan, and he was "foggy in his memory" about the supposed pact.
The mayor said the increase in pregnancies was in keeping with similar spikes in other US cities.
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