Let's start with making them free. Are the medical/abortion costs really lower than providing everyone with unlimited plastic with a little lotion on it?

If a person cannot find free condoms in the US, there is a serious problem with that person's searching. The government gave out a ton grant money that was to be spent on free condom dispensers (oddly multi-colored from one vendor). States and public health clinics will give them free in various programs.

And let's not forget the machines in a huge number of gas station rest rooms across the country. Most of them are $0.75.

If a person cannot find free or ultra-cheap condoms today, the person really is not trying and probably should be doing other things.

Also, as many of the folks at work discovered, the free contraceptives were accompanied with a larger than cost increase in premiums.

The people who need condoms the most, are the ones least likely to go looking. If a condom is not around, 'ah baby come on I'll just pull out.' And then when there's a baby on the way and they're both 16 or can't afford an abortion etc etc, oops. Now we have a teenage mother and a father who doesn't want to be one.

We can go around hand-waving and saying how irresponsible people are, or we can recognize how people are, were and will be and make sure they don't accidentally reproduce for no good reason.

We know how, we just need to stop expecting people to be other than they already are for a minute and start a world-wide free-condoms campaign. Where's Bill Gates, make it happen! :)

Because you know who's supporting that single mother and all the difficulty that ensues? You and I, with our tax dollars and otherwise.

"The people who need condoms the most, are the ones least likely to go looking."

That is the problem that condom availability will not fix. The only system solutions are pushing girls into sports and other extra curricular activities, and getting more male teachers in elementary schools to provide proper role models. I'm well away from my desk so I don't have the study references, but both help in this regard.

but they are already pretty much free and easy to get. do we have to put them on for everyone too? do you want to just mail a package to every person in the world once a month? I mean, what is your solution to make people actually use them. They are already free!

Some condoms should be free. But since the point of TFA is that innovation is slow, it seems good for better condoms (as judged by consumers) to cost more. That way condom manufacturers have an incentive to make better condoms.

I'm from Québec (Canada) and you can easily find free condoms at your Local Community Services Centre or any anti-aids/healthcare organization. But, I'm not exactly sure that it helped to reduce AIDS transmission or the number of abortions (if we look at the numbers they have increased in past years), but there's a lot more to take into account than condoms usage alone. Still, I completely agree with you that it should be free. I'm curious, are we alone in this world to give free condoms or it's a common practice?

You can get free condoms just about everywhere (including the United States). The problem is that you get them free from your local family-planning clinic, or community centre, etc.

People who are at risk for having unprotected sex probably need the condoms to be easily available (i.e free in high-schools, free in bars/nightclubs, etc.). If they have enough forethought in order to make a trip to one of the places where they are free, they probably have enough forethought to buy them themselves without problems.

In Vancouver they get handed out on the Granville Street strip by some crazy lady with a bucket full of them, as well as being freely available many other places.

Opposition to contraceptive availability by right-wingers doesn't take into account the higher cost of not providing these services because that isn't as important as their moral crusade. Rather, it's about punishing and shaming people who engage in what they view as immoral behavior and controlling women's bodies, which is why you also see laws banning female sex toys alongside anti-sex ed and anti-contraception legislation.

Agreed. It seems to me that the problem is that it is easy to get condoms for free/cheap in many places in western countries.

However, my experience living in Chile is that in countries that often need it more, they are much more expensive to get. In Chile, they were roughly twice as expensive as in my home country Belgium. Add in the big difference in wages and we're at approx. 4x difference. The argument that they are available for free is a joke, since it requires people to go to a doctor instead of simply a pharmacy.

I also believe that for many people, the difference between cheap and free is a big one.

There's tons of places in most major cities that give away condoms for free. When I was in my freshman year of college, the main study room for a program I was in had a big bowl of free condoms by the exit.

There've been many people in this thread suggesting that condoms ARE already free, if you go and seek them out. It is like saying food is free when you go out of your way to select places. You'd have to know where to go and then be comfortable in grabbing a dozen free condoms there. Until you're out two weeks later. So a bi-weekly visit to your favorite free-condom location. Do you know anyone who actually does this? It makes for a great comedy sketch :)

Besides, I don't want to use condoms that came from a bowl at a public place. I remember the first time I bought a bunch of condoms at a young age, not only was it terribly embarrassing and expensive at that time (I wasn't working, try explaining to your parents you need money for sex), it wasn't fun hiding them from my parents either.

I imagine this is a bigger problem for women - imagine a mother finds a dozen condoms in her 15 year old's purse.

I do see your point regarding places that someone would go to explicitly for condoms - but the big bowl was in the study room for a college program. Almost all the people in the program were there everyday condoms or not - so maybe the solution is to put them in places where people already frequent?

School/work/etc.

Because I do agree that not many people are going to make a trip to Planned Parenthood, park, and go in just to get some free condoms.

I don't see a problem with condoms from a public bowl. I used them throughout my freshman year without a problem. As for your embarrassment factor, that's a problem regardless of free or paid. That's just the stigma around sexual activity in general.