More than one out of every eight girls at Canto, Ohio’s Timken High School is pregnant as school starts this fall. If that number astounds you, please consider that it does not include those who have already had a child. What is the reason?

There are 490 female students at Timken High School, and 65 are pregnant, according to a recent report in the Canton Repository.

The article reported that some would say that movies, TV, videogames, lazy parents and lax discipline may all be to blame.

School officials are not sure they what has caused so many pregnancies, but in response to them, the school is launching a three-prong educational program to address pregnancy, prevention and parenting.

I’ll resist the temptation to make a snide comment about the contention that school officials don’t know what has caused so many pregnancies. I’m sure that a health of biology textbook clued them in really quick.

No, the reason is that sex has no consequences today. Look at what the school is doing – creating a parenting program to help these kids raise their kids. If it looks anything like my school district’s program, it will include free day care, free medical care, special scheduling, and a coordinator to get the new mothers hooked up with all the relevant entitlement programs. Getting pregnant and dropping a kid at age 16 won’t have any consequences at all – and when the little girl with the rotund belly is the guest of honor at a cafeteria baby-shower surrounded by all of her friends, being a “baby mama” will continue to look glamorous. And I won’t get into the question of the small number who actually get married on Saturday and come to school on Monday showing off their new wedding ring. And after graduation, many of them will be eligible for special scholarship money for overcoming the hardship of being a teenage mother.

I can still remember the day when getting pregnant (or even married) meant that you education was over. You had made an adult choice, and needed to live with the adult consequences. But with the consequences removed, what incentive is there for a young lady to put a dime between her knees and keep it there until graduation? None.

I realize that shame and consequences are dirty words in today’s society, and that using them marks one out as a cold-hearted SOB with an archaic value system. But let’s be honest – those social sanctions worked. Maybe we need to go back to them.

Either that, or more of my colleagues had better expect to hear what I heard from a student in my class several years ago – “Mister – I think I need to go to the nu-u-u-u-u-r-r-r-s-s-s-e! My baby’s coming.”