DAVIS, Calif., Sept. 21 (UPI) -- About one-quarter of U.S. teenage girls, all with a history of abusive relationships, say their partners actively tried to get them pregnant, a study found.
Study leader Dr. Elizabeth Miller, a pediatrician at the University of California at Davis Children’s Hospital, interviewed 61 girls ages 15 to 20 in Boston. Fifty-three reported being sexually active, and involved in relationships that included recurring patterns of physical, sexual or emotional abuse by a male partner.
The study, published in the journal Ambulatory Pediatrics, found 26 percent of the girls reported their partners were actively trying to get them pregnant by manipulating condom use, sabotaging birth control use and making explicit statements about wanting them to become pregnant.
"We were floored by what these girls told us," Miller said in a statement. "You think of forced sex as an aspect of abusive relationships, but this takes that abuse a step further to reproductive control of a young woman’s body."
