Pregnant With Meaning

I've got a new piece up at The Guardian's Comment is Free about the 17 Gloucester girls who are pregnant and the ensuing national hand-wringing about them:

As ever, pundits have wondered about what role the media might have played, suggesting popular movies like Juno and Knocked Up were inspiring teen pregnancies, much as the classic Molly Ringwald vehicle For Keeps? and the lesser John Hughes triumph She's Having a Baby did in the late 1980s. I vividly recall when a friend told me she was pregnant our sophomore year of high school, making her the 35th pregnancy in our class that year, and I asked whether it was Ringwald or Elizabeth McGovern she was trying to emulate. She told me, "We just got carried away and forgot the condom," teaching me an important lesson about teenagers, the media and pregnancy. Oh, and forgetting condoms.

Read the whole thing here.