New contraception ranking shows differences between East and West

Western Europe performed well in the latest ranking on access to contraception and information about it. On the other end, Poland remained the laggard for the second year running, scoring lower than ever and underscoring the growing east-west divide.

The contraception atlas, published by the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights (EPF) on Wednesday (9 February), revealed a clear divide between East and West Europe when it comes to contraception.

The Atlas looks at what governments are doing on making contraception accessible in Europe and it includes 46 countries. It takes into account access to contraceptive supplies, access to counselling and also what the governments are doing to provide online information about contraception.

Presenting the Atlas at an event on Wednesday, EPF secretary Neil Datta said that contraception use contributes to fewer unintended pregnancies, which then leads to fewer induced abortions.

“Europe has among the highest contraceptive prevalence rates and the lowest abortion rates in the world. But this progress is very uneven, as you will see, some countries do very well and some countries do not,” Datta said. 

He highlighted that the divide between East and West is bigger than last year. “Almost all the countries in Western Europe are doing very well and then there’s a lot of work that needs to be done on the east of the continent,” he said. 

East and West divide

The findings showed rather positive results overall, with France and the United Kingdom joining Belgium as the best-performing countries. “Last year, we had one champion that was Belgium. This year, we have three equal co-champions,” Datta said.

Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden, and Estonia are following close behind. 

“We have six countries that introduced policies improving access to contraception last year, governments are increasing the age of contraceptive coverage, and are including long-acting reversible contraception,” Datta said.

He pointed out positive changes happening in France, where young women will have contraceptives reimbursed up until the age of 25.

Additionally, in Iceland, there are new provisions on who can prescribe hormonal contraception, while Italy is getting rid of some “unnecessary administrative barriers”.

In the meantime, Lithuania is making available some form of long-acting reversible contraception for younger women while in the UK, contraceptive pills were reclassified to make them more accessible.

But the picture is less rosy on the eastern side. “Those countries that were doing poorly, stay doing poorly. We’ve seen no progress in Eastern Europe,” Datta said, listing the EU member states of Slovakia, Greece, Croatia, Hungary, and Poland as countries where no progress was seen. 

While access to modern effective, affordable contraception still remains an unnecessary challenge for many women in Europe, Datta highlighted that “the loser this year remains Poland and it lost even more than it did last year.”

Poland is also the only country listed as ‘exceptionally poor’ regarding contraception. For Datta, Poland is worse than last year “not because Poland did any worse but because we were looking at more things and we found out that Poland is even worse than what we anticipated.”

Political drive behind women’s health 

Irène Tolleret, a French MEP from the liberal Renew Europe Group, highlighted that “what is happening in Poland could happen anywhere else”.

“These things happen because of politicians who are populist, and they decided to keep the power by tackling LGBTQI members but also by attacking women’s rights and especially sexual and reproductive rights”. 

Ilona Kikbusch,  the founder of the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, shared similar thoughts during an event on Tuesday (8 February). “We’re having a rollback on women’s health, with fewer rights, because we have authoritarian and religiously driven politics in some countries.”

Tolleret stressed that having indicators such as the atlas is “crucial to trigger legislative changes in European countries as well at the EU level”. 

“We need to fill the gaps across Europe regarding the high cost of contraception, insufficient availability, information and discriminatory policies,” she said. 

EU parliament demands progress in ensuring women's sexual reproductive health

The European Parliament voted in favour of a resolution on sexual reproductive health and rights of women on Thursday (24 June), calling on member states to ensure access to abortion, contraception and sexuality education.

Calls for action

Discussions around health in the EU often begin and end by stressing that health falls under the national competence of each member state. 

“So can we intervene directly? No. But can we push it on the agenda? Yes,” said another Dutch liberal MEP, Sophie in ‘t Veld. 

In June last year, the European Parliament voted in favour of a resolution on sexual reproductive health and rights of women, spearheaded by Croatian socialist MEP Predrag Matić, which also includes contraception.

Tolleret said that “this strong and timely call from the European Parliament” needs now action from the member states, to “put gender equality and SRHR [sexual reproductive health and rights] at the core of the European agenda”.

In ‘t Veld added that after COVID, “people are more convinced of the need for a health union”, which creates “momentum to push for the inclusion of SRHR” into the general public health strategy.

“I do count on the French [EU Council] presidency to very firmly inscribe this in the initial blueprints of such a health union and not leave, let’s say, ideological forces determined at European level that women and men, by the way, should have lesser services,” in ‘t Veld said.

In January French President Emmanuel Macron said the right to abortion should be included in the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

EU’s call for abortion as fundamental rights – a political bluff?

MEPs call for abortion to be included in the Charter of Fundamental Rights is supported by the French presidency, but according to an EU law expert, this is “not going to happen” – and having an anti-abortion Parliamentary president is not the only obstacle.

[Edited by Gerardo Fortuna/Zoran Radosavljevic]

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