Educational and legal framework of access to contraception in Europe

G. Lazdane

Reproductive Health and Research, WHO Regional Office for Europe

"Universal access to reproductive health services by 2015" was one of the goals of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo in1994. Most of the countries represented at this United Nations meeting confirmed "the right of men and women to be informed and to have access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of family planning of their choice…". One of the reproductive rights of every person is the right to information, education, and decision-making.

The WHO European Regional Strategy on Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) of 2001 urges the Member States of the WHO European Region to create supportive legislative and regulatory frameworks to: review laws and policies to ensure that they facilitate equitable access to SRH education, information and services, ensure that regulations and standards are in place and necessary commodities are available on a consistent and equitable basis, and set performance standards for the provision of services.

There are 52 Member States and they have widely differing educational and legal frameworks for reproductive choice and access to contraception. The educational framework is multidimensional and consists of sex education in schools, access to information in health care institutions, the mass media and internet sites, the role of pharmaceutical companies, as well as the quality of educational materials.

The legal framework at the national level usually concerns the access to contraception of specific target groups and/or to a particular kind of contraception, as well as the licensing of primary health care providers to deliver contraceptive services. The sexual health of adolescents has recently been the topic of multiple research studies in the European Region and resulted in changes in the current laws and regulations.

Examples of the effect of the educational and legal framework on the sexual and reproductive health of the population will be presented.