Contraception will now be free for women up to 25 years old, announces Olivier Véran – LCI

While contraception was free for 15-18 year olds, then, for a year, for under 15s, it will now be free “for all women up to the age of 25”, Minister of Health Olivier Véran announced this Thursday, August 9. In this context, “there will be support for hormonal contraception, the biological assessment that goes with it, the consultation of prescription and all the care related to this contraception”, he detailed on the set of France 2.

To justify this measure, quantified at “21 million euros”, the minister evokes the cost of this contraception, which weighs on the budget of many young women. “I made several observations, in conjunction with the scientific authorities: there is a decline in contraception in a certain number of young women and the first reason is to give up for financial reasons, it costs too much. C it is unbearable that women cannot protect themselves, have contraception, if they choose to, because it costs them too much in their budget “, he assured.

According to the minister, the age of 25 corresponds “in terms of economic life, of social life at an age of autonomy”. “It is also the age when we will definitively leave complementary health care in our home. It is also a determining age below which women give up contraception because it costs too much”, he added.

The measure will enter into force “from January 1, 2022”.

Free contraception had already been granted since 2013 to young girls aged 15 to 18, whose rate of abortion (voluntary termination of pregnancy) has since dropped significantly, from 9.5 to 6 per 1000. between 2012 and 2018. Since August 2020, it has been extended to children under 15.