Gaby Rodriguez

Gaby Rodriguez (now 18 and a college student) made national headlines in 2011 as the 17-year-old high school senior from Toppenish, WA, who revealed she had faked a pregnancy for a class project—a story that became the book and Lifetime movie The Pregnancy Project.  In it, she shares her experience growing up in the shadow of low expectations, reveals how she was able to fake her own pregnancy, and what she learned from the experience.  Raised by a single mother, with seven brothers and sisters, Rodriguez was told growing up that she would end up a teen mother, like her own mother and older sisters had. She had other ambitions, and the question that sparked her project was: how would she be perceived if she "lived down" to others expectations about the path her life would take?  She received the regional ACLU award for Youth Activist.