17 teenage girls at Gloucester High School in Gloucester, Massachusetts are pregnant. Time Magazine reports that some adults “dismissed the statistic as a blip,” while others blamed media glamorization of young, unwed motherhood. It has been revealed, however, that the regional boost in youth pregnancy was attributable to a pregnancy pact made between the young girls.

Often considered in any discussion of effective collective action is the concept of safety/strength in numbers. By moving forward with an otherwise radical action side by side with many co-conspirators, potential adverse reaction is assumed to be diluted, if not diminished completely, when distributed over many perpetrators rather than a few. Further, by many perpetuating an otherwise perceived devious action, an image of normalcy can then be associated with the action when many participate.

While two teen moms from the area, unrelated to the pact, have come out to call the pact “dumb,” I wonder how ingenious the proposed agreement sounded to the girls in the planning stages. It is likely that the allure of such a pact was rooted in the perception of safety in numbers that was imagined to be inevitable when a certain critical mass of expecting mothers showing up to school was reached. These teenagers, believing that motherhood would bring to their lives something they felt was otherwise missing, believed that they would make deliberated teenage pregnancy a non-deviant, normal action by moving forward together.

Herein we ask, at what point does safety in numbers cross from being a successful tool for collective action into being an inhibitor on reason?

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