Keeping Mum: Cheap contraceptives for all sexually active people

11:51 AM Tuesday May 8, 2012

'... all sexually active men and women should have access to as many cheap contraceptives as they need.' Photo / Thinkstock

Maybe I am just becoming more conservative in my old age, or having children has changed me, but I fail to see the problem in offering beneficiaries free contraceptives, and in fact applaud the idea.

Not because beneficiaries make bad parents. But because it is a step in the right direction in terms of encouraging people to have the number of children that is a comfortable fit for them, financially, emotionally, and otherwise. If that is not empowering women, I don't know what is.

I don't think the government, by the way, is doing it to 'empower women'; it's being done as a way of reigning in the cost of benefits and playing to the National party supporter base, and that's why critics are riled by it. But the critics do themselves no favours by talking about 'eugenics', 'racism' and 'beneficiary bashing'. Free contraception is entirely voluntary, and has grown out of a widespread dissatisfaction about the way benefits, intended to ensure children can eat, have a roof over their heads and see doctors, sometimes don't seem to make it to their intended targets. While most beneficiaries undoubtedly act responsibly with this pretty small stipend, when they do not they cause untold misery and ill health and the state is within its rights, I think, to take pre-emptive action on the issue.

I think ideally all sexually active men and women should have access to as many cheap contraceptives as they need, while acknowledging that it's still not going to stop unwanted children, or children born into situations that are obviously unsuitable. To further that aim the next step is to target at-risk young women, in particular, with plenty of incentives to stay in education and training. Ensure they have real options for their future. It's all infinitely harder than handing out depo provera shots or long term contraceptive implants. That said, we have to start somewhere.

By Dita De Boni

Outline (New Zealand) | 01:10PM Tuesday, 08 May 2012

On the surface it does appear to be a good initiative. It seems, however, that these 'unwanted' babies are termed as such, more because the John Keys' 'taxpayer' doesn't want them than any evidence of lack of love from their parents. We need to separate child abuse and this issue - abused children of beneficiaries make up a very small percentage of the total. Lets not forget also that non-beneficiary children can be also be unwanted and abused in a number of different ways.

So if the government is worried about its burgeoning beneficiary class it needs to direct solutions at the causes: for some unemployment - due to lack of training, life skills or job availability; for most, a social culture that does not encourage, and gives no training for, couples to stay in the type of loving, committed relationships that will produce great kids. Kids who will be taxpayers soon enough.

So given the complexity of this issue, offering cheap contraceptives sounds just like another government ploy to distract the nation from its asset sale agenda rather than a serious policy initiative.

Joel (New Zealand) | 01:11PM Tuesday, 08 May 2012

I think woman naturally are more empowered than men in the area of motherhood, it is impossible to be a mother if you are a man. Only woman have the power to be mothers.

Why is making woman sterile empowering them?

Dem (Invercargill) | 01:11PM Tuesday, 08 May 2012

Despite what the government and most people in society would have us belief. All pregnancies of female beneficiaries are not immaculate conceptions. Men play a part in the situation, and as such for everyone woman who gets given contraceptive pills, a man should be given a strip of condoms.

Fairs fair, isn't it? Especially seeing as both are at fault for the rising numbers of women on benefits having babies.