- Question
- Should birth control be free?
- Position‹3 of 3
- Some forms of birth control should be free
- Argument1 of 2›
Condoms are easy to access
Condoms can be carried in almost every kind of store and do not require a prescription, providing ease of access.
The argument
Supporters of this position argue that the question of free birth control need not be answered all at once, and that condoms are the obvious place to begin. The case rests on how little would have to change for free provision to work. Condoms are small, simple and easy to use, and they are already carried by nearly every basic grocery or drug store supplier, so no new distribution network would be required; the shelves, the suppliers and the habit of picking them up in an ordinary shop all exist already. They cost only around a dollar each, so the public cost of removing that charge is modest measured against the cost of subsidising other methods. And because more people would take them once the price fell to nothing, proponents argue that free provision would also increase production within the birth control industry rather than merely redistributing an existing supply. The second strand of the argument is about the terms of the debate itself. Free condoms, on this view, are a much easier case to make than free birth control pills, intrauterine devices or implants. Those methods are surgical or otherwise clinically administered, they act on the body in ways that are harder for a user to understand unaided, and they cannot simply be handed across a counter. Condoms are not surgical, they are easy to understand, and almost anyone can obtain and use them. Whatever one concludes about the harder cases, proponents hold, none of the objections attaching to those methods attaches here. Because the means of distribution is already in place, the unit cost is low, and the method carries none of the clinical complications of the alternatives, supporters conclude that the argument for free condoms stands on its own feet. That is not a case for free birth control in general, but it is a case for some forms of birth control being free.
Premises
Counter-arguments
Condoms still cost money to create, and unless stores are being given condoms to give out for free, cost money to place inside stores. We also cannot trust that people would not steal these free condoms and attempt to turn a profit, taking all of them and trying to sell them.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P2] This is not economically sustainable.