The Government is going to cop a fair bit of verbal over its plan to provide free long-term birth control like implants and intra-uterine devices for women on benefits and their teenage daughters.
Social Development Minister Paula Bennett says as the Government is introducing penalties for those who have more children while on a benefit, it needs to ensure better access to contraception.
Talk of these new measures was all over morning television and talkback radio after being announced.
Some say it's ridiculous, that it's up to women and their men to ensure they take precautions if they don't want to get pregnant. Others say it's a great idea but wonder why it won't be offered to all women. Some say it borders on state control of women's reproductive choices while others are calling it a common sense approach.
Sharon Wilson-Davis, who was on the welfare working group which made the contraception recommendation, has said something had to be done, that families on low and minimal incomes can't deal with additional children, that social services are stretched already and we don't need more children being born into poverty.
