{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.027082268778742973, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 4.969512195121951, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Book Review: Prevention of Pregnancy in Adolescents

This slim booklet confines itself to looking at one issue-the provision of contraceptive services to adolescents. It does so from three all-encompassing standpoints-medical, legal, and psychiatric-and achieves its purpose in a matter-offact fashion with an economy of style. One can peruse it swiftly and this reviewer would like to recommend it as required reading for all professions involved in helping relationships with adolescents. The urgency of the subject is borne out by the statistics. In New York City almost twothirds of the mothers with dependent children on public assistance first became pregnant before they were twenty-one. Harold Marcus discusses the motivational aspects for having a baby and the needs, positive or negative, that a woman fulfills through pregnancy. His contribution is valuable but limited; he does not sufficiently take into account situational causes, such as ignorance, that lead to pregnancy. Very importantly, however, both Dr. Marcus and Alfred F. Moran stress that motivation not to have a child is the key to the practice of contraception and that by itself, provided in isolation, contraception is unlikely to be utilized by a population that is not highly motivated. It follows, as Moran states, that contraceptive service must be provided "not only more widely, . . . but in conjunction with other related services," such as "just plain basic information about sex" and open communication between youngsters and adults. Moran notes pragmatically that "utilization of anyone service must not be a condition for securing any other service." The only qualifier for contraceptive help can be immediate individual aid, and the ultimate resource must be abortion. Given such a program, Moran suggests-and this seems like common sense indeed-we will see "a change not only in many adolescents' interest in preventing pregnancy, but in their success in doing it."