70 Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health Emergency

contraceptives are pregnancy prevention meth-ods that can be used after unprotected vaginal intercourse has occurred. From a pregnancy prevention perspective, vaginal intercourse is considered unprotected when a con-traceptive method is either not used at all or not used cor-rectly. Adolescent females in the United States are ideal can-didates for emergency contraception, considering that an estimated 800,000 American 15–19-year-olds become preg-nant each year.1 More than three-fourths of these preg-nancies are unintended and result from failure to use con-traceptives at all or failure to use them correctly.2 Almost one-third of unintended adolescent pregnancies end in abor-tion and more than half end in childbirth, so the use of emer-gency contraception by adolescent females has the poten-tial to reduce both of these rates substantially.