We grew up in a kind-of po-dunk place. Once, in the tenth grade, when the office lady called the names of nine girls to the health room, it took us a few minutes to realize that those were all the pregnant girls in our class. It happens, especially in small towns; girls get knocked up in high school. But none of them, as far as we know, did it on purpose, and we have enough faith in our former guidance counselors to know that they probably didn't recommend it. Even in college, when we needed more loans to cover tuition and went into the financial aid office to cry every semester, no one suggested we get pregnant to get more money from the state. Maybe that's because Bush's abstinence-only funding plan is paying off? Because across the pond, an orphaned teenage girl in West Yorkshire was told by her benefits advisor that the only way she'd get more money from the state was to get knocked up.
While this was run as one of those kind of "feel good, help this poor girl" stories, in the UK's Metro, it kind of pisses us off. But if it would make her boyfriend stay with her forever and ever against his will, that's a whole other story...