Liberals are venturing once more into provincial jurisdiction, this time to help women manage the manageable cost of maintaining a uterus
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Federally-funded women’s contraception can safely be said to do one thing: maintain the Liberals’ feminist image.
It won’t realistically improve access for most among the young and the poor, because most provinces already offer targeted coverage for these groups. It won’t help the privately insured. It will provide a nice, but unnecessary, break to everyone else who can front the mild cost. And for those women who don’t want to use any medically prescribed contraception, it provides nothing.
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Redundancies aside, “universal free birth control” sounds good and just, and makes itself out to be a solution to the female experience that only Liberals can provide.
Here’s what birth control access actually looks like in Canada right now: free universal coverage for all women in B.C.; targeted coverage in the Yukon; free oral contraceptives and IUDs for those on Alberta’s low-income benefit plan; free or incredibly cheap birth control to those on Saskatchewan’s low-income plan; free prescription contraception in Manitoba; free prescription contraception for Ontarians under 25 without private coverage.
Oh, and for Indigenous populations, hormonal and non-hormonal contraception is covered through the federal Non-Insured Health Benefits program.
The status quo on female contraception is actually pretty decent. It makes sense that solutions are regional like this because it’s constitutionally up to the provinces. If provincial governments want, they can improve access for those unable to provide for themselves (or even go full universal, like B.C. and Manitoba).
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This isn’t good enough for the federal Liberals, in part because it’s yet another piece of provincial territory that’s ripe for the taking. The feds’ sudden push for country-wide “universal” access ignores the existing, responsibly targeted programs, and will probably drown them out of public memory once Bill C-64 is passed.
Provincial responsibilities are being hijacked and absorbed into the federal domain (see the $30 billion national child care plan, Tuesday’s $6 billion housing plan and the $1 billion national school lunch plan for a few others), and birth control is just another entry to the list. Like child care, there were already provisions in place for the needy. Like child care, a national female contraception program will mostly benefit those who can front the costs, but will enjoy further reductions in expense.
The feds’ case for going this way is partly utilitarian: high costs cause women to not use the pill, so they say, nodding to a 2019 study that found women in households making less than $80,000 were less likely to take the pill (and more likely to use condoms) than their higher-income counterparts. The study didn’t look at reasons why, but speculated cost was a factor. We don’t actually know. The feds believe that offering free birth control for everyone will reduce the rate of unplanned pregnancies, in any event.
These aren’t miracle drugs or devices; cost is one of many reasons these interventions aren’t universally used. The birth control pill is a notorious inducer of weight gain and acne and often comes with a heavy dose of depression (one 2023 study of 260,000 women in the U.K. found a pronounced risk in the first two years of use). It kills relationships and bedrooms, and it tampers with how one feels attraction. When women do voice their concerns, their objections are attributed to “misinformation.”
Meanwhile, the NuvaRing can cause irritation, the IUD is vulnerable to expulsion and the pain can be hellish, the shot can decrease bone density. These methods work for some people, but they aren’t a panacea and they won’t necessarily improve a woman’s quality of life. For most, these are optional interventions, not needs like insulin is to a diabetic.
Birth control coverage is probably less about alleviating the cost of non-essential medical interventions, and more about alleviating the sheer indignity to women perceived by the Liberals of not having these things covered by the public purse.
There appears to be a growing belief, particularly among those on the left, that (female) contraception should be socialized as a matter of principle, that even though many women can pay or have their private insurers pay, it should be up to the population to bear the cost of unwanted fertility. Women don’t consent to being born women, after all, which means they don’t consent to having a uterus and taking on the responsibility of managing the built-in risks that come with this burdensome organ.
We are a society that ties personal dignity to sexual freedom, with particular attention to women and sexual minorities in recent years. June is dedicated to celebrating Pride; non-heterosexual sex. Awareness days to recognize individual communities, transgender, two-spirit and so on, are observed at an increasing frequency throughout the non-Pride months. We venerate free sex in our cultural celebrations, so it makes sense that we would integrate support for free sex in our laws. Directing federal taxes towards birth control for all is one way to do this, as is decriminalizing the non-disclosure of HIV-positivity to sexual partners, which is being floated. Law is not culture, but it is downstream from culture. Hence Bill C-64.
So, free contraception it is. Except for men, because condoms aren’t included in this draft law.
We didn’t need this. Yes, the managing of the uterus is an onerous task that men don’t share, but the costs are minor and bearable. Men take their share of added costs elsewhere, too. It’s asymmetric. Either way, there has previously been nothing wrong with leaving it to adults to be responsible to mitigate risk in their adult choices, but now the asymmetry is unbearable and undignified.
Necessity isn’t the reason for universalizing female contraception, as needs-based programs provide these things already. Instead, this government is reducing the trivial cost of contraception to zero as an offering, a gesture of support, to a demographic key to its feminist image.
National Post
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