This article talks about how Target predicts when a woman is pregnant, and the steps they go to to make it less weird:

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits....

One of my favorite incidents and exactly what I was thinking about.

We are not far from that point, with Target who figured out a girl was pregnant before her dad knew:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...

While "notifying" that you "are" pregnant, according to data and calculations seems helpful, the fact that a lot of apparent pregnancies end in miscarriage[0], or just the emotional roller-coaster that is family planning (particularly when it requires additional medical assistance) takes a toll on people, means that these well-meaning emails can really be a negative trigger.

[0] https://www.webmd.com/baby/guide/pregnancy-miscarriage

"According to the March of Dimes, as many as 50% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage -- most often before a woman misses a menstrual period or even knows she is pregnant. About 15-25% of recognized pregnancies will end in a miscarriage."

Helpful?

I mean honestly, the whole point of computing is to do things we as humans can't do with data to make our lives easier. Now that it's actually doing those things, people think it's creepy and scary.

If a computing system knows you are pregnant before you do then maybe it can help you take steps (like taking pre-natal vitamins, abstaining from heavy drinking/smoking, starting a savings account etc...) weeks before you would have normally. How is that dystopian?

I can't help but think about how it would give you more time to consider carrying to term vs abortion, since there is a hard time limit and earlier is better in terms of stress on the body and ethics.

This would make it a target for anti-choice groups as well as internal company ethics, however, so it's a complicated issue.

If they just sent you a notification that you’re maybe pregnant I would agree. Instead it starts with advertising.