Subsidizing Birth Control

The British government last week announced that it is making oral contraceptives available at trifling cost under the National Health Service to Britain's women, who number 12,250,000 in the child-bearing (15-49) age bracket. The measure, though duly limited by requiring doctors' prescriptions, seemed a significant step toward massive, government-paid support for curbing a nation's population. Yet much concern in the House of Commons was over the possible but unpredictable cost to the treasury.*

For each prescription, which is expected to cover a month's supply of 20 pills, a woman under NHS will pay a token charge of 2 shillings (28-c-). The government will pay the rest, estimated at $2.08 a month. Health Minister Enoch Powell told Commons that he hoped doctors would prescribe the pills only when they had good reason to believe that a woman should avoid pregnancy. But in effect he conceded defeat in advance: "It is not for me to indicate to doctors what they should decide, for medical reasons, to prescribe for their patients." He therefore left it up to doctors to decide whether or not to prescribe the pills for unmarried women.

*When dollar-conscious Britain decided to try out oral contraceptives developed in the U.S., doctors in Birmingham thought they might cut the cost by cutting the dose. U.S. authorities had just approved a cut from 10 mg. per pill (taken 20 days a month) of norethynodrel (trade-named Enovid in the U.S., Conovid in Britain by G. D. Searle & Co.) to 5 mg. The British cut it to 2.5 mg. The policy proved to be penny-wise and pound-foolish: of the first 48 women who took the half-dose pills, 14 became pregnant. Later trials switched to a 5-mg. dose, and then there was only one pregnancy among 215 women.

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