There is choice in when and with whom to mate, of course, but there are also underlying conditions that render pregnancy more or less likely to succeed, and they most surely correlate with our feelings of desire and choice, whether we know it or not. Some of these conditions apply population-wide: in time of famine, nearly nobody reproduces, as individuals lack the nutritional and physiological resources with which to bring a baby to term, and feed it after it’s born. Other conditions, though, are particular to the individual: Is your body ready for its first pregnancy? If you’ve had previous
...more
