The Morning-After Pill Needs to Be Cheaper and More Accessible, Advocates Say

If you've ever been forced to disclose the details of your last sexual encounter to a pharmacist in a strip-lit drugstore while an angry man with a bad cold waits in line behind you, you'll know how uncomfortable and embarrassing this is.

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) argues that the current system deters women from accessing emergency contraception—and it creates a "sexist surcharge" that makes women pay over the odds for their own sexual health. The reproductive health charity is now calling for the morning-after pill to be made more accessible by selling it for cheaper and directly off the shelves.

While GPs and clinics offer the morning-after pill free on the National Health Service (NHS), long waiting times may mean that women are unable to book an appointment and must buy the medicine from pharmacies. According to research from the European Consortium for Emergency Contraception, they are then forced to pay up to five times more for a pill that costs as little as £6 in neighboring France.

"We are increasingly frustrated that the price was so high compared to other European countries," BPAS spokesperson Abigail Fitzgibbon told Broadly. "There doesn't seem to be an adequate explanation for that. We know that, combined with the consultation, is a barrier for women seeking emergency contraception."

BPAS chief executive Ann Furedi did not mince her words: "It is utterly stupid that we have made a medication which gives women a second chance of avoiding an unwanted pregnancy so hard to obtain," she said in a statement. "There is no financial justification for the high price of this pill, nor clinical reason for a consultation before it can be sold."

As part of its campaign, Just Say Non, BPAS is calling on the Department of Health to review access to the medication. "We would like the DoH to take these concerns seriously and look at what they can do. There's limited amount of what they can do about the price, but they can start asking questions about whether it meets women needs and what messages they're sending out [to women with the method of access and inflated price.]"

A Department of Health spokesperson told Broadly, "Emergency contraception is available free of charge from general practice, sexual health clinics and from some community pharmacies. We are clear it is only for use in emergencies and we have no plans to change the system."

The morning-after pill was first made available to buy behind the counter in UK pharmacies 15 years ago. At the time, BPAS says, the price was set high on purpose, and a compulsory consultation was introduced to stop women from using it as a regular method of contraception.

The consultation appears to vary from pharmacy to pharmacy, with some women reporting that they were taken into private consulting rooms while others were merely questioned over the counter. BPAS says that the consultation is "embarrassing" and "unnecessary," though a spokesperson for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society claims that it is "central" to providing the medication.

"[The consultation is] not clinically necessary," Fitzgibbon said, pointing out that the morning-after pill is safer than other medication that is sold off the shelves, such as painkillers and nicotine replacement therapies. "There's no clinical need to discuss whether there's a need to take a safe medication. Women are perfectly capable of asking pharmacists for advice if they need it."

Furedi added, "People are trusted to use a wide variety of medications sold on the shelves of pharmacies in a sensible and appropriate way. Emergency contraception should be no different."