Should birth control be free?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Should birth control be free?
Position1 of 3›: Yes, birth control should be free
Argument‹4 of 5›: Birth control costs too much

Something so critical to so many people should not cost an arm and a leg.

The argument

This argument holds that birth control is priced out of reach for the people who most need it to be affordable, and that the price rather than any objection to contraception is what limits its use. The dividing line is insurance. For those with access to insurance, getting birth control is a relatively simple process. For those who don't have insurance, or have a form that doesn't cover birth control, the expense can be outlandish — so the same product costs one person almost nothing and another a substantial sum, according to a circumstance unrelated to their need for it. The figures cited set out the range. The pill can cost anywhere from twenty to eight hundred dollars a year for the average woman, and an IUD can be up to $1300. These are recurring or large one-off costs falling on households without insurance, which tend to be the households least able to absorb them. The cheapest option illustrates the bind. Condoms are the cheapest method out of the variety of options available, and they also happen to be the least effective, with an 85% prevention rate. Cost and reliability therefore run in opposite directions, so a woman constrained by price is pushed toward the method most likely to fail — and the consequence of that failure is far more expensive than any of the methods. Proponents argue the effect is straightforward: this cost prevents women from using birth control, and bringing down the price would allow more women to use it, creating healthier and more productive members of society. Because cost is what stands between women and effective contraception, this argument holds that birth control should be free.

Premises

[P1]Without insurance coverage, birth control is expensive — the pill can cost up to $800 a year and an IUD up to $1,300, while the cheapest option, condoms, is also the least effective. [P2] This cost prevents many women from using birth control, so bringing the price down would let more women use it and create healthier, more productive members of society. [C] Because birth control costs too much, birth control should be free.

Counter-arguments

Giving everyone free access to birth control may be cheaper for them, but in the long run it would likely be too costly. Pharmaceutical companies would go out of business as income becomes delayed due to these products being free. Morally it may be beneficial, but economically, it won't.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] This may be true, but making birth control free is not the answer to this.