Guest editorial: Benefits of policy unclear

The Government is going to cop a fair bit of verbal over its plan to provide free long-term birth control like implants and intra-uterine devices for women on benefits and their teenage daughters.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett says as the Government is introducing penalties for those who have more children while on a benefit, it needs to ensure better access to contraception.

Talk of these new measures has been all over morning television and talkback radio.

Some say it's ridiculous, that it's up to women and their men to ensure they take precautions if they don't want to get pregnant. Others say it's a great idea but wonder why it won't be offered to all women.

Some say it borders on state control of women's reproductive choices while others are calling it a common sense approach.

Sharon Wilson-Davis, who was on the welfare working group which made the contraception recommendation, has said something had to be done, that families on low and minimal incomes can't deal with additional children, that social services are stretched already and we don't need more children being born into poverty.

Her arguments are compelling. This new service is not going to be compulsory but could prove a godsend for many women on benefits already struggling day to day.

There are many different ways to react to this proposal.

Women on benefits may feel insulted, as though the Government is saying they shouldn't be having children in the first place, or that they are having children they shouldn't be having or that they are considered more promiscuous than other women.

Working women may feel aggrieved that yet again, they miss out, that despite all the taxes they pay - taxes which help to pay benefits - they are excluded from something they might also benefit from.

This is one of those policies that could either make a real difference or just breed resentment towards beneficiaries.

Only time will tell.