More than one-third of all pregnancies in the United States are mistimed or unwanted, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But in fact, there's very little that's accidental about the majority of them. Most occur because people choose not to use contraception or use it in the wrong way. The CDC recently surveyed more than 7,000 women of child-bearing age about their contraceptive practices. The results, published in August, suggest that 4.5 million sexually active women aren't using contraceptives despite the fact that they say they want to avoid pregnancy. (Of course, men, too, bear responsibility for the problem of unintended pregnancies, but most surveys on this subject focus on the part women play.)

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