Emergency Contraception — Expanding Opportunities for Primary Prevention

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Unintended pregnancies are endemic in the United States, and the costs are huge.1 The traditional approach to this problem has been primary prevention (contraception), backed up by secondary prevention (induced abortion). For decades, emergency contraception has been ignored as a method of primary prevention.Although most U.S. obstetricians and gynecologists are aware of emergency contraception, they prescribe it infrequently. Only 1 percent of women in the United States report ever having used emergency contraception.2 In contrast, each year 2 to 3 percent of women of reproductive age have an induced abortion. Thus, the cumulative number of women who have had . . .