Dear Learned Colleague,

Have you ever heard someone decry the scourge of “unintended pregnancy” and say something should be done about it? This month we ask, what exactly is an “unintended” pregnancy, who says so, and so what?

Rebecca Oas, Ph.D., explains all this and more in this month’s Definitions. She explains why so many women studied agreed that a pregnancy could become “wanted” regardless of whether it was “intended” or not. 

Sincerely yours,

Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D.
Editor

The “sexual revolution” of the late 1960s in the United States and Europe was based on the idea that the link between sex and pregnancy is opt-in rather than an opt-out. That is, one’s sexual behavior can be entirely independent of procreation, and that parenthood ought to be “planned.” As the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) frames it, human life occurs “by choice, not by chance.” Read More >>>