In season one of the TV show “Desperate Housewives” (blast from the past, we know), the couple Carlos and Gaby can’t agree on whether or not they should have a baby. Carlos, anxious to start a family, replaces Gaby’s birth control with sugar pills, which leads to her getting pregnant. Five seasons (and some children) later, Carlos has again tricked Gabby, and confesses that he didn’t actually have a vasectomy, even though he’d told her he had.
While there are a lot of outlandish storylines on that show, this one isn’t far from reality for some couples. Unfortunately, these scenarios don’t just happen onscreen, and there’s a name for them: reproductive coercion. A person of any gender can coerce their partner into being at risk to have — or actually having — a baby.
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