All but two of these dozens of accounts share something in common. In the two dissociative cases, the women were killed by their husbands, men to whom they were married (legally, we must presume). In all, not some, all, of the other cases, marching in thanatoid succession through the series, the women were slain by the fathers or suspected fathers of their fetuses or babies to whom they were not married.

In short, the series could have been slugged: "Unmarried Pregnancy and Homicide." But that would spoil the aseptic objectivity of a numbers study.

The series does not underscore this salient feature of the relationship between the victim and the assailant. By omission it simply accepts it.

In short, does pregnancy really increase a woman's risk of getting killed in America? Well, it sure increased the chances for those we were told about, most especially unmarried pregnancy.

Nowhere in the series is there a suggestion that somebody, aside from the statistics collectors, is making a mistake, that some societal acceptance is now also a recipe for death. There is a hint of it when Pat Brown, a criminal profiler from Minneapolis, is quoted as saying, "If the woman doesn't want the baby, she can get an abortion. If the guy doesn't want it, he can't do a damn thing about it. He is stuck with the child for the rest of his life, and he's stuck with that woman for the rest of his life. If she goes away, the problem goes away." In other words, the acceptance of unmarried pregnancy, by the subject of it and by her family and friends, carries with it a measure of danger.