Should birth control be free?

Incentive to create safe methods of birth control decreases

Question: Should birth control be free?
Position‹2 of 3›: No, birth control should not be free
Argument1 of 4›: Incentive to create safe methods of birth control decreases

Making birth control free decreases motivation to research new high-quality and safe methods.

The argument

The objection is not to birth control but to what removing its price would do to the market that produces it. Unfortunately, a lack of financial motivation for businesses to develop a product is a recipe for a reduction in the quality of birth control methods, because pharmaceutical innovation is funded by the prospect of a return and directed towards wherever that return is largest. One source summarizes it perfectly: "The minute pills are 'free,' under insurance, the incentive for drug companies to come up with cheaper versions vanishes. So does their incentive to develop safer, more convenient, male-centered or nonprescription birth control." The detail in that list is what gives the argument its force. The improvements it names are precisely the ones nobody is currently obliged to make, and each has to be worth making to somebody. If the user no longer pays, cheapness stops being a selling point, since price has become invisible to the person choosing. Safety, convenience, male-centred methods and non-prescription availability are similarly features a company pursues in order to win customers away from a rival, and they lose that commercial purpose once every option reaches the user at no cost. A second effect works on the structure of the industry. Competition will also decrease, creating an almost monopoly system with a few companies producing all of these free methods, which removes the remaining pressure to improve on what already exists. Production will continue, but the questions raised concern what is produced: whether it will be safe, whether it will be effective, and whether the variety available will decrease. The last question is about responsibility, asking who is at fault if no one wants to work in this industry for lack of financial motivation, and it is meant to show that the cost of free provision falls on future users rather than present ones.

Premises

[P1]If birth control is made free, drug companies lose the financial incentive to develop cheaper, safer or more convenient methods. [P2] Competition would decline, producing a near-monopoly among a few manufacturers of the free methods. [P3] Without financial motivation, the quality, safety and variety of birth control are likely to fall. [C] Therefore, because it reduces the incentive to create safe methods, birth control should not be free.

Counter-arguments

We cannot assume that every single company operates based upon financial obligation. The idea of ethics needs to come into play as well. Free birth control will be beneficial, whether it is provided by one company or eight.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P3] This will still benefit women.