Unintended Pregnancies

Almost half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended. (1) The proportion of unintended pregnancies varies greatly with women’s age. The greatest percentage of unintended pregnancies occurs among teens under age 19 (over 79% of pregnancies in this age group are unintended). (2)

What percentage of pregnancies are unintended?

49% of pregnancies in the United States are unintended.

States do not uniformly collect data about unintended pregnancies; therefore, the Report Card includes only national information about unintended pregnancies. Neither the states nor the nation are graded on this indicator. (3)

Data Source: Unintended Pregnancies (%) (National Only), 2001

EXPLANATION:

This measure includes women ages 15-44 who had an unintended pregnancy in 2001. Data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) and from other sources are used to provide estimates, for 2001, of the percentage of pregnancies that were unintended. The estimated proportion of women who have ever had an unintended pregnancy is calculated by first adding the number of women who had an unplanned birth to the number who had an abortion, and then subtracting those who were counted twice because they had both an unplanned birth and an abortion.

SOURCE:

Lawrence B. Finer and Stanley K. Henshaw, "Disparities in Rates of Unintended Pregnancy in the United States, 1994 and 2001," Perspectives on Reproductive and Sexual Health 38 (2006) 90-96.

  State Overall Data State Grade State Rank
ALABAMA      
ALASKA      
ARIZONA      
ARKANSAS      
CALIFORNIA      
COLORADO      
CONNECTICUT      
DELAWARE      
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA      
FLORIDA      
GEORGIA      
HAWAII      
IDAHO      
ILLINOIS      
INDIANA      
IOWA      
KANSAS      
KENTUCKY      
LOUISIANA      
MAINE      
MARYLAND      
MASSACHUSETTS      
MICHIGAN      
MINNESOTA      
MISSISSIPPI      
MISSOURI      
MONTANA      
NEBRASKA      
NEVADA      
NEW HAMPSHIRE      
NEW JERSEY      
NEW MEXICO      
NEW YORK      
NORTH CAROLINA      
NORTH DAKOTA      
OHIO      
OKLAHOMA      
OREGON      
PENNSYLVANIA      
RHODE ISLAND      
SOUTH CAROLINA      
SOUTH DAKOTA      
TENNESSEE      
TEXAS      
UTAH      
VERMONT      
VIRGINIA      
WASHINGTON      
WEST VIRGINIA      
WISCONSIN      
WYOMING      
 
S (Satisfactory): 0  
S- (Satisfactory Minus): 0  
U (Unsatisfactory): 0  
F (Fail): 0  

1 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Healthy People 2010, 2nd ed. (Washington: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2000), at 9-3, available at: http://www.healthypeople.gov/Publications/.
The National Survey of Family Growth classifies pregnancies in three categories: intended, mistimed, and unwanted, acknowledging that unintended pregnancies may or may not be unwanted pregnancies. Joyce C. Abma and others, "Fertility, Family Planning, and Women’s Health: New Data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth," National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Health Statistics 23 (May 1997).

2 Lawrence B. Finer and Stanley K. Henshaw, "Disparities in Rates of Unintended Pregnancy in the United States, 1994 and 2001," Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 38 (June 2006), 90, 93, available at http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/psrh/full/3809006.pdf.

3 The Healthy People 2010 goal is to reduce unintended pregnancies to 30 percent or less of all pregnancies. Healthy People 2010, Objective 9-1. However, because the Report Card grading methodology is based on the states’ performance on each indicator, as explained in the Methodology section, it is not possible to grade the nation on this indicator in the absence of state data in a manner that is consistent with the rest of the Report Card.