Unintended pregnancies don’t just happen to teen mothers. Women of any child-bearing age will find themselves pregnant unexpectedly, including married women. About half of all pregnancies in the United States right now are unintended. This means that reducing these levels of unintended pregnancies has been made a public health goal, despite the fact that in 2013, the birth rate in the United States hit an all-time low.
Statistics on Unintended Pregnancies
1. The percentage of pregnancies in the United States that are unintended annually: 51%.
2. 31% of women say that their pregnancy that was unintended was simply mistimed, while 20% of women say that their pregnancy was unwanted.
3. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has a campaign called “Healthy People 2020” which aims to reduce unintended pregnancy by 10% over the next 10 years.
4. At least 37% of pregnancies in every U.S. state are unintended and 31 states have more than half of all pregnancies listed as unintended.
5. Rates of unintended pregnancy are generally highest in the South and Southwest, and in states with large urban populations.
6. The US state with the highest unintended pregnancy rate in 2008: Delaware with 70 per 1,000 women aged 15-44.
7. Unintended pregnancy rates are highest among poor and low-income women, women aged 18–24, cohabiting women and minority women.
8. For women who have incomes that are at or below the Federal poverty level, the risks of having an unintended pregnancy were 5x higher than women at the highest income levels.
9. With an unintended pregnancy rate of 92:1000, African American women have the highest rates of any racial or ethnic groups. These rates are 2.5x higher than Caucasian women.
10. Women without a high school diploma have an unintended pregnancy rate that is 1.1 per 100 women.
11. The highest unintended pregnancy rate in 2008 was among women aged 20–24 at 1.4 per 100 women.
12. The proportion of pregnancies that were unintended increased slightly between 2001 (48%) and 2008 (51%).
13. The unintended pregnancy rate among only those teens who are sexually active is more than twice the rate among all women.
14. 4 out of 10 unintended pregnancies will result in an abortion, which is a reduction from 2001 statistics which showed 47% of pregnancies ended in an abortion.
15. More than 10% of single men say that they were not informed about a pregnancy until after the child was born.
16. For men who were aware of a pregnancy, 75% of them say that the outcome was unintended.
17. At least 70% of births resulting from unintended pregnancies were paid for by public programs in 14 states.
18. The total cost to US taxpayers for unintended pregnancies in 2008 was $12.5 billion.
19. California [$1.5 billion] and Texas [$1.3 billion] spent the most on unintended pregnancies.
20. The percentage of unintended pregnancies that occur to women who are actively trying to avoid becoming pregnant through modern contraception methods: 5%.
21. The 16% of women at risk who do not practice contraception at all for a month or more during the year account for 52% of all unintended pregnancies.
22. Compared with higher-income women, poor and low-income women are less likely to end an unintended pregnancy by abortion.
23. By age 45, more than half of all American women will have experienced an unintended pregnancy, and three in 10 will have had an abortion.
What About Intended Pregnancies?
Why are fewer than half of all pregnancies intended in the US? It could be because of the structure of the society. Corporations aren’t required to give women an extended amount of paid maternity leave. There is no real business incentive to have children because working parents have to make their family one of their top priorities. Although parents are one of the hardest working, most responsible demographics that a business owner can employ, they are seen as costly members of the workforce – even though they have more overall production and commitment.
There is also the fact that raising a child in today’s environment is much more expensive than it really needs to be. College tuition prices are incredibly inflated and parents are struggling to find value in what public education opportunities for young children are able to provide. When the tangible costs are combined with the potential lack of income that comes with being a parent because you’re no longer seen as employable, it’s understandable why many parents, especially mothers, are actively seeking to avoid pregnancy.
What are mothers doing when they have an unintended pregnancy? How is society reacting? Are there options available to struggling mothers? As the statistics below show, there are some things that US is doing right… and plenty that it is doing wrong.
Costs of Unintended Pregnancies
The cost of an unintended pregnancy go beyond what a mother faces. For many communities, everyone has a stake in the outcomes of an unintended pregnancy because they are sharing part of the cost of it.
Whether it is for religious reasons or because some women simply can’t afford contraception methods, there are a small minority of women who don’t practice any methods and it is causing the unintended pregnancy rates to blossom. Although taking antibiotics while on birth control can cause a pregnancy and other contraception methods are successful all but 1% of the time, women taking no contraception methods whatsoever account for more than half of all unintended pregnancies. Is that responsible behavior? Or a personal right that they have?
If a community must be pay for the birth of a unintended child, there is a legitimate question to be asked: should the community also have a say in how contraception is distributed? If women in the lower income brackets are the most susceptible to having children that were either mistimed or unwanted, then what would happen if they were simply given contraception? As the statistics above show, women who actively practice contraception while being sexually active account for just 5 out of every 100 pregnancies.
Incorporating women who are at or below the poverty line would then reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies by 47 out of every 100. That’s a dramatic drop if the statistics were to hold true. Whatever the case may be, each community has a lot at stake. Overall birth rates are lower than they’ve ever been. We need to find a way to not only lower unintended pregnancy rates, but raise the working opportunities for parents so they have the ability to really support their children and themselves.