Friday, May 16, 2008

overage pregnancy?

If there were crimes comitted, by all means prosecute them. But I always got the feeling that the crime committed by these folks was practicing a "weird" religion.

Turns out an increasing number of those pregnant teens weren't, well, teens.

Like one cult is better than another.

SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- When Texas child welfare authorities released statistics showing nearly 60 percent of the teen girls taken from a polygamist sect's ranch were pregnant or had children, they seemed to prove what was alleged all along: The sect commonly pushed girls into marriage and sex.

But in the past week, the state has twice been forced to admit "girls" who gave birth while in state custody are actually adults. One was 22 and said she showed state officials a Utah birth certificate shortly after she and more than 400 minors were seized from the West Texas ranch in an April raid.

The state has in custody two dozen other young mothers and others whose ages are in dispute. If most of them also turn out to be adults, it would be a severe blow to the state's claim of widespread sexual abuse.

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