One of us was a mistake

One in three babies is conceived by mistake, the result of missed pills and split condoms, according to a large-scale study which questions whether women have the control over their lives that modern contraception promised them. The study by leading sexual health researchers in Edinburgh concludes that women are crossing their fingers when their contraception fails them, or when they forget to take a pill, rather than taking emergency contraception. The figures in today’s Lancet are alarmingly similar to those in the last study of its kind 25 years ago – five years after the contraceptive pill first became available. The paper concludes that new efforts are needed to teach women how to use contraception. Of the women who were seeking abortions, only a quarter were because of unprotected sex. Most of the respondents blamed a missed pill or split condom. The results also revealed that a relatively small proportion of both groups of women had taken the morning-after pill, bought over the counter, even when they knew they had risked a pregnancy.