Knowledge key to avoid drama

The New England teen baby-mama drama continues.

Speculation is rife.

Did 17 teenage girls in Gloucester, Mass. make a pregnancy pact? And, if so, why?

And every would-be expert has weighed in:

It’s because the girls come from broken homes and want someone to love. It’s because they watched the blockbuster movies Knocked Up and Juno.

It’s because they admire Jamie Lynn Spears, younger sister to pop-idol Britney.

Maybe there’s just no simple answer.

Regardless of why or what, raising a child isn’t easy and these girls have a tough life ahead of them.

Babies, often cooed at and awwed over, aren’t so cute and adorable when screaming at four in the morning with a full diaper and you have to get up in a few hours to catch the bus for high school.

This I know from experience — I had my son when I was 17. I didn’t come from a broken home.

I didn’t watch movies starring teen moms.

I didn’t even know of the younger of the two Spears sisters.

Now, I’m not one to find a scapegoat for my problems, or those of others, but one thing that me and the 17 girls in Gloucester have in common is religion.

I was raised in a devout Roman Catholic home in an equally religious town — as do the soon-to-be teen mothers.

Fornication — as sex before marriage is referred to in Roman Catholicism — is a mortal sin and strictly forbidden, as is any kind of sexual activity.

And, since sex is only for the purpose of procreation, no forms of birth control are allowed.

Just mention the words “pre-marital sex” and “birth control” and the hand-wringing begins.

As a young girl, I was told the best method of birth control was to keep a dime held firmly between my knees and given a pop-up book illustrating the female and male reproductive organs.

Not exactly the greatest advice and, hopefully, those books were put to good use — like an alternative for home heating.

And when my priest — my supposed moral and spiritual leader — was told of my “situation,” he bluntly told me I was a sinner and that I was going to hell.

How’s that for enlightened guidance?

Teaching abstinence-only sex education is just not feasible — not now, not ever.

Teens need to know the truth and reality about sex.

My son, who will be 12 this year, knows all of his parts, how they work and how to be safe when using them.

I know many might disagree, with objections that such an approach encourages kids to have sex, but let’s be realistic: sex is everywhere.

At nearly every turn, we’re inundated with it.

Although some might say, let kids be kids, at least I know that when my son finds himself in a, well, precarious situation (because I know he will — we’ve all been there), he’ll have the knowledge to make an informed and safe decision.

Obviously, there’s a problem — pact, no pact or any of the other explanations — when 17 girls get pregnant.

Speaking as an ex-Roman Catholic, maybe it’s time to look past outdated religious ideologies based on an interpretation of morality and arm this and future generations with a proper sexual education that includes, but isn’t confined to, abstinence.

That dime dropped long ago.