Labour pledges free contraception for women and the morning-after pill for all

The Labour Party is pledging to distribute the contraceptive pill and the intrauterine contraceptive device for free if re-elected to government, party president Ramona Attard said.

Speaking during an interview on ONE TV on Tuesday, she said the morning-after pill will also be available for free from pharmacies and health centres for all women. 

An exercise carried out by MaltaToday last year found that access to the morning-after pill is limited because not all pharmacies stock it despite having been made legal in 2018.

Similarly, the PN had pledged free contraception to everyone if elected to government, in order to address one of the lowest rates of condom use by men in Europe. It had also proposed free access to the morning after pill, including at Mater Dei Hospital for victims of rape.

Attard said a PL government will distribute menstruation-related products free of charge in schools to address the social stigma still associated with this natural process.

She also announced that the national breast cancer screening service will be available also to women form 45 years of age.

The PL president said the measures were part of a wider package of proposed reforms, "From the first hours of the election campaign we started announcing proposals and we will continue to do so in the coming days," she said.

READ MORE: MaltaToday called 119 pharmacies and finds that emergency contraception is still difficult to source for women