According to Health Canada, every year there are 300,000 pregnancies in Canada and 100,000 of those are unplanned.
To address this issue, Canada's largest non-profit sexual health service provider is pushing for the provincial government to provide free access to contraception for all women in B.C.
The proposal from Options for Sexual Health (Opt) is meant to address affordability for low-income women, to encourage teenagers to practice safe sex and to save government health care dollars.
"I think it's important that all women have access to free birth control should they choose to use it," said local Opt board member Suzie Soman.
"Birth control's expensive and access can be an issue it should be accessible and free in Opt clinics dedicated to promoting education, awareness and choice surrounding contraception and sexual health."
Opt provides sexual health services through clinics, advocacy programs and the 1-800-SEX-SENSE information and referral line.
The Squamish clinic operates Tuesdays from 5 to 7 p.m. at Coast Garibaldi Health Unit and provides STI (sexually transmitted infections) testing, information and treatment. It also provides contraception education, products, pregnancy testing, pregnancy options counselling, abortion services, sexual assault information and counselling and HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C testing, information and support.
Condoms are free at the clinic, but staff is required by the B.C. Ministry of Health to charge fees for all other forms of contraception.
Soman said the clinics offered by Opts provide reproductive health services to people of all ages and staff prioritizes services for young people in a nonjudgmental, supportive atmosphere. She said clinic patients are between 13 and 60 years old.
"One of the things that Opt does well is that we provide an education session around all types of birth control," she said. "Girls need to choose what's going to work best for them."
Soman said the idea isn't that girls show up and say, "I want free birth control."
"There is a whole bunch of education and important medical information that needs to go with them," she said.
As a young mother herself, Soman said, "it's never too early or too late to talk about sexual health and what is important for our bodies."
"If we can be the go-to place to make that happen, then I think that's a great thing because you may not be sexually active, you may not be ready to have sex, but I believe that you should have accurate information for when that time comes."
According to Opt medical director Dr. Unjalli Malhotra, Opt's proposal would save the Province $95 million in health and social expenditures, freeing up health-care resources and services for other needs. Figures are based on international experience and Health Canada data on the impact of sexual health programming collected over 20 years.
"The economic aspects are probably one of the most important as there is an up-front cost to a program like this," said Malhotra, who is also a clinical associate professor at University of British Columbia.
"But when we look at other programs globally such as the U.K., Sweden, in fact most Scandinavian countries and many European nations, we've actually found that for every dollar spent on contraception, anywhere from $2 to $11 has actually been saved to the system."
Malhotra explained the costs of having 300,000 unplanned pregnancies per year across the country.
"When we look at the number of unplanned pregnancies in a country like Canada, we find that there are approximately 300,000 or more per year and approximately 100,000 of those lead to abortion," she said.
"Contraception is about $100 a year per woman, which is $3,000 for 30 years."
She said that for one unplanned pregnancy, the cost of a spontaneous vaginal delivery with no complications is actually the same as giving someone contraception for 33 years.
"The cost of one abortion is equivalent to the cost of two years of contraception and the cost of one no-complications delivery is equivalent to 33 years of contraception," she said.
She said sometimes unplanned pregnancies lead to social assistance use, which is also costly.
"I'm not saying in any way that all unwanted pregnancies lead to social assistance use," said Malhotra. "However, those that do can cost approximately $9,000 per child per year."
She said the proposal has been placed on B.C. Premier Christy Clark's desk and Opt is hoping to get a response shortly.
Malhotra said money aside, choice, education and accessibility are human rights.
"For choice, women and couples should really have the option of when they choose to have a pregnancy and how under what terms and what circumstances," she said. "This really allows people to have access to something that they may choose to use or not use, but with no restriction or barriers to decide when they want to have that pregnancy."
She said the added bonus of providing contraception at these clinics is the education component that goes with it.
"We do find that if people are accessing free contraception, they're at an access point where they can be potentially getting their pap smear done, receiving STI information and other health benefits that can be utilized," she said.
"It's really a one-stop shop for the bulk of women's care."
Opt is encouraging anyone who supports the initiative to contact their local MLA.
