just a thought

so theres this story, a headline really, that if youve seen any news in the last month you have no doubt heard about. it focuses on a young group of teens from a massachusetts town who supposedly made a pact to intentionally get pregnant and raise their babies together. (they seriously should have called me first, i would have explained just how different my belly looks post baby as well as the finer perks of throwing up while 7 months preggo). but they didnt call me and i didnt have the chance to take these girls under my 'you dont want to be knocked up' wing and explain to them with truth in love why there could possibly be a few easier ways to keep in touch with high school friends (if you even remember them post graduation) and bond with the girls. can you say facebook and a spa day? alas, these young mothers now have young babies and for all the speculation and criticism (can you believe the news coverage has everything from hollywood making it look too easy/glamorous to jamie lynn spears having a baby at 17 sharing the blame) i see a potential silver lining in the now infamous story.

i went to a high school with well over 2,000 students. of those 2200 kids, there were 2 girls who had babies, one doing a brave job of raising her little boy while trying to complete her diploma and the other who generously offered up her little one to a young couple unable to have children of their own. the second girl, after making an extremely difficult and brave decision to give her own baby a different life than she could offer, was rewarded for her courage in the way that only high school girls are capable of by calling her a slut and a whore behind her back. rather than honored, she was shamed. rather than being supported, she was ostracized and rather than being respected she was humiliated by her peers. what i know now is that there were lots of pregnancies in that high school, there were just not many births. the stigma of having a child as a teen was far greater than the stigma of having an abortion.

i am a supporter of all life. of the life of the unborn and the life of a woman who is forced to make an unimaginably difficult and painful decision to not have a child. i recognize that for every life taken, there is a life forever changed. there are scars and wounds that never heal within these women who when faced with a choice were in a place where terminating a pregnancy seemed like the best option.

and while im concerned that teen pregnancy is still prevalent (although it is at its lowest rate in a decade) and that there was clearly a lapse in maturity and judgment by these young women, i am simultaneously encouraged that the stigma for having a child amid less than ideal circumstances seems to be making progress. i am not saying we, as a society, should celebrate a group of young teens choosing to get pregnant. what i am saying is that there is at least room for the possibility of a gradual shift in our view of these young girls and subsequent pregnancies. perhaps the tide is changing and we are beginning to alter how we judge the choices of young women facing difficult decisions. and i believe, if only in the smallest and most hopeful spaces of my spirit, theres a chance we are placing a greater value on life than we have in the past. and for that i am encouraged.