Surprise! Half Of All Pregnancies Are Accidents

This is an article about sex. It's not about sex in that ooh-baby-that-feels-good way. This will not be a discussion about how to do it faster-slower-deeper-longer or about who does what to whom. This is not a guide to tantric sex or an exploration of how to have a better orgasm.

It's not about how sex can kill you. You've heard that before. You know sex can lead to HIV, HPV, hepatitis C, gonorrhea, syphilis, cervical cancer and God knows what else.

This is about how sex can make you pregnant. Everybody knows that, you say. Not so fast. Nearly half of all pregnancies in America are unintended, according to U.S. government statistics. And half of those pregnancies end in abortion. Think those numbers are driven by clueless or careless teenagers? It happens to women who are years out of school, women with college degrees and hefty bank accounts. Married women. Nearly 60 percent of pregnancies among women ages 20 to 24 are accidental, as are a third among women 30 to 34 and half among women older than 40.

In fact, while fewer teens are getting pregnant than did a decade ago, rates of unplanned pregnancy haven't dropped at all among some older age groups. Remarkably, pregnancies and abortions among women in their 40s, who are bombarded by messages about how hard it is for older women to conceive have gone up in the past decade.

If these trends hold, there will be about 3 million unintended pregnancies in the United States this year. Almost 1.3 million women will become single mothers. These numbers are much, much higher than they are in England, France, Canada and Japan, and experts say they are a direct result of Americans' attitudes toward sex—our personal ones and those we share as a society. They signal an "ambivalence and lack of direct dealing with one's sexuality and risk of pregnancy," says Sarah Brown, director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy in Washington, D.C., and one of the country's leading experts on unintended pregnancy.

Too many women get "foggy" when it comes to making decisions about sex and birth control, Brown says, in large part because the messages they hear from everyone around them are hazy and mixed up. Our teachers, doctors, pastors and partners don't talk about preventing pregnancy because they may not know much about it. Some employers would rather go to court than offer insurance that pays for contraception. And the government agencies that should be helping women prevent pregnancy seem to be working against them. "This nation needs to become much more clearheaded about sex," says Brown, because we are paying a high price for our fogginess, both financially and in the form of damaged lives.

54%
of unplanned pregnancies end in abortion. (That's 1.4 million per year.)

A national problem

"The day after my 32nd birthday, I learned I was pregnant. I'd gone to the doctor for birth control pills, having recently started a new relationship. My doctor waited during my stunned silence, and then gently asked, 'Any idea what you want to do?' The dot-com I worked for was hurtling toward bankruptcy, and I knew I was likely to be laid off. My relationship was far too new to classify as committed. Although I really want to have children someday, I found my decision surprisingly clear." —Mary, 34, nonprofit executive, New York City

85%
of sexually active women not using contraception will become pregnant within a year.

Plenty of women, including young single women, get pregnant by accident and have children they love and raise happily. Others have abortions and feel more relief than regret. But when Brown and Leon Eisenberg, M.D., professor emeritus at Harvard Medical School in Boston, compiled data on unintended pregnancy for the Institute of Medicine (part of the National Academy of Sciences), they found that on the whole, unplanned pregnancies add up to massive health and social problems.

For one thing, there are the abortions, 1.4 million per year at last count. Pro-choice activists and abortion foes may battle over whether the procedure should be legal, but most agree on one thing: There are too many abortions in America. Abortion creates moral struggle, mental anguish and financial hardship and has spurred violence and murder. "Abortion is just a symptom of the bigger problem, which is unintended pregnancy," says Mitchell Creinin, M.D., associate professor in the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

700,000
abortions could be averted every year if emergency contraception were sold over the counter.

Although abortion and childbirth are both relatively safe in this country, neither is as safe as not becoming pregnant in the first place. Women who conceive by accident are more likely to be depressed during their pregnancies. Regardless of whether they are married or single, they suffer more postpartum depression. And they may be two thirds more likely to be beaten by their husbands or boyfriends.

Women who have babies when they aren't planning to are also far likelier to put their careers and education on hold. It's not that they can't get back on track. Single and teen mothers in America perform miracles daily. But succeeding is so much harder. Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America in New York City, had her first child at 16. She made it through college; it took her 12 years. "It can be done," she says. "But why should anyone have to?"

$1.43
is all it costs a business to cover an employee's birth control for a month.

Children born to parents who didn't mean to conceive also confront steep hurdles, says Brown. To give a baby a good start, ideally a woman should see a doctor before she's pregnant and get prenatal care and proper nutrients. (A daily dose of folic acid alone can prevent devastating birth defects such as spina bifida and anencephaly.) One report revealed that women who get pregnant accidentally are 30 percent more likely to smoke when pregnant and even more likely to drink. And many of their kids will grow up without fathers. "The data on father presence, and what it means in the lives of children, is just overwhelming," Brown says. "Children need fathers, and women need support, love and attention when they're raising children."

4,000
infant deaths could be prevented annually if all pregnancies in the United States were planned.

We all foot the bill: Unplanned pregnancy causes greater welfare dependency, elevated health-care costs, increased unemployment rates—all leading to higher taxes. As stated in a 2000 report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, "an unintended pregnancy, once it occurs, is expensive no matter what the outcome."