Government policies promoting "healthy marriage" should include family planning counseling to help couples avoid unintended pregnancy, according to "Marriage Is No Immunity From Problems Planning Pregnancies," by Cynthia Dailard. Large numbers of married women in the United States experience unintended pregnancies, abortions and unwanted births each year--stressful events with emotional and financial costs that may potentially undermine marital stability.
The typical American woman marries at age 25, and achieves her desired family size of two children by age 31. She then spends the next 20 years until menopause trying to avoid an unintended pregnancy. Although married people have lower rates of contraceptive failure, unintended pregnancy and abortion than those who are single, they still face considerable difficulties in using contraceptives consistently and correctly, avoiding unintended pregnancy and abortion, and planning and spacing their births. The most recent data available show that:
• Nearly one million married women in this country experience an unintended pregnancy each year.
• Almost four in 10 unintended pregnancies to married women end in abortion.
• 17% of all abortions occur to married women.
• More than half (56%) of married women who had an abortion in 2000 were practicing contraception in the month they became pregnant; most of these women cited inconsistent use as the reason they became pregnant.
• 2.5 million married women and their husbands are potentially at risk of sexually transmitted diseases because of infidelity.
| Pregnancy in Marriage |
| Of the three million pregnancies to married women each year, three in 10 are unintended... |
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| ...and four in 10 unintended pregnancies to married women each year end in abortion. |
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Source: Henshaw SK, Unintended pregnancy in the United States, Family Planning Perspectives, 1998, 30(1):24-29 & 46. |
A key goal of many marriage promotion initiatives is to reduce the number of out-of-wedlock births. However, marriage itself is not a solution to the family planning problems so many couples face. Dailard argues that policy initiatives and programs designed to promote "healthy marriage" should support counseling and related education efforts that include information designed to help couples avoid unintended pregnancy and its consequences. All couples, married and unmarried, need accurate information about the probability of pregnancy when contraceptives are not used, as well as about the importance of consistent and correct use of methods to avoid unintended pregnancy.
Dailard's analysis appears in the May issue of The Guttmacher Report on Public Policy. Other analyses in this issue include:
• "Critics Charge Bush Mix of Science and Politics Is Unprecedented and Dangerous," by Heather Boonstra;
• "Envisioning Life Without Roe: Lessons Without Borders," by Susan Cohen; and
• "Immigrants and Medicaid After Welfare Reform," by Rachel Benson Gold.