Factors influencing conception in women seeking termination of pregnancy. A pilot study of 100 women.

An urgent social, medical and psychological problem is that of unwanted pregnancy. It is only comparatively recently that full responsibility for termination of an unwanted pregnancy has fallen fully on the medical profession and has been accepted by doctors with varying degrees of willingness and reluctance. Doctors are puzzled because in this permissive society, in which there appears to be good access to contraceptive advice and easy accessibility to the pill, women still have unwanted pregnancies; some doctors feel this is on the increase. In this study some factors have been examined which appear to have contributed to the conception of an unwanted child, in particular the women's attempts at preventing this unwanted conception, in an effort to identify groups of volnerable women by their attitudes to contraception.