In France, free contraception will be extended to all women up to the age of 25. Until now, the health insurance has covered all costs only for underage girls.
From January 1, 2022, the Health Insurance will cover “100% and third party payment”, all the costs necessary for contraception for the three million young women potentially concerned: one consultation per year with a doctor or a doctor. midwife, the related biological examinations, as well as the contraceptives itself: “certain contraceptive pills, contraceptive implants, intrauterine devices” (also called IUDs), diaphragms and hormonal emergency contraception, specified the Ministry of Health.
The Minister of Health Olivier Véran stressed that contraception was declining in this age group mainly for financial reasons. This system, which will cost 21 million euros per year, will be implemented until the age of 25, an age at which young women access “more autonomy“, further explained the minister.
For Bertrand de Rochambeau, president of Syngof (main union of gynecologists), the measure is all the more useful as it is aimed at women in “the most fertile period of their life”: “they have the most sexual activity, but many find it difficult to make ends meet“, he observed.
However the financial aspect is not “not the only obstacle“to contraception, because the”younger generation wary of oral contraception and the impact it can have on the body“, he regretted.
Family Planning, a feminist association that has been campaigning since 1960 for the right to contraception and abortion, also welcomed this announcement, while calling for a “major national information campaign“on contraception and a more proactive policy on sex education.
Free contraception has already been granted since 2013 to young girls between 15 and 18 years old, whose rate of abortion (voluntary termination of pregnancy) has since dropped significantly, from 9.5 to 6 per 1,000 between 2012 and 2018. Since August 2020, it has been extended to children under 15.
Reference-feedproxy.google.com