ABSTRACT
Teenage pregnancy emerged as a major concern in the 1960s and 1970s, with policymakers and the public alike in many western countries expressing dismay at the number of teen pregnancies. Although some writers questioned whether the perceived ‘epidemic of teenage pregnancies’, so named by the Alan Guttmacher Institute (1976), was a reality, others continued to fuel anxieties. Even a decade later, there were dramatic and disturbing figures produced by writers such as Trussell (1988) in the USA, recording about 837,000 pregnancies, plus another 23,000 among those aged 14 and younger: ‘One out of every 10 women aged 15-19 becomes pregnant each year in the United States. Of the pregnancies, five out of every six are unintended-92 per cent of those conceived premaritally, and half of those conceived in marriage’ (Trussell 1988:262).
