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The real cost of contraception

HOSTS Carmel Moorhead & Zoe Moorhead|5 March, 2021

This week, we’re talking to Emily from 1800myoptions about the cost of contraception, hygiene products and abortion. 1800myoptions has talked to around 12000 women about their contraception, abortion, pregnancy options and other sexual health needs. 

After all, two-thirds of Australian women of reproductive age use birth control. At 1800myoptions, they don’t give specific medical advice, but they’ve definitely talked to enough people to know there are a lot of trends around who’s paying for what and who’s wanting what. Like, did you know the average woman spends $10,000 on period products in their lifetime? And moving from a short acting to a long acting contraception could actually save women a few hundred dollars every year? 

It’s a delicate topic, but Zoe and Carmel want to know more. 

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Carmel Moorhead: [00:00:19] Hello and welcome to another episode of meet pay love, where we talk all things money and relationships. My name's Carmel and as always, I'm joined with my youngest sister, Zoe. [00:00:29][10.6]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:00:30] Hello Carmel, let's start off by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land in which we are recording and listening to this podcast on. Today, we pay respects to elders past, present and emerging. [00:00:39][9.6]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:00:40] I'm really looking forward to this episode today because we're going to be talking about all things contraception. [00:00:45][5.1]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:00:46] How much does it cost and who pays for it? What are the options if you're in a long term relationship, is it OK to split or ask a partner to pay for it? [00:00:55][8.0]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:00:55] What about a one-night stand or a shorter-term relationship? Should you be expected to always have contraception on you or be taking the pill? [00:01:02][6.6]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:01:02] The thing about contraception is that it's mutually beneficial across the relationship, no matter if it's a one night stand or if you're in a long term partnership. [00:01:10][7.3]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:01:11] And pretty much every single form of relationship is going to need contraception if it's to be avoiding a pregnancy, if that's not what you want or if it's to be avoiding catching STIs or STDs, [00:01:23][12.2]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:01:24] it's definitely a safe option and it's definitely can be cost effective. We've talked to a number of people about this and we had a friend call in to us, Sarah and her partner Michael. And this is what they had to say. [00:01:35][10.9]

Sarah: [00:01:35] I'm Sarah. I'm twenty six. I am a full time student and I am in a six year long term relationship. I am currently on the ID and I have previously been on the pill for about six years. So the pill was a lot more expensive than the IED. The pill was costing me around twenty five dollars every three months, I think it was. And then the IED was covered mainly by Medicare and health insurance and cost me six dollars fifty to get put in. It was and it cost me five years. When I first went on the pill, it didn't even cross my mind to ask my partner. I was eighteen years old. I was going to ask them to fork out the money, the my pill every three months. But getting older. I can see why people would ask their partners to contribute to paying for it. Personally, I wouldn't because I'd be on it whether or not I was with my partner. But if I was going on it specifically when I entered a relationship with someone at an older age, I understand why they'd ask someone to pay 50 percent. I obviously only paid six dollars a week before mine about two years ago, so I'm not going to ask my partner to pay me three dollars. I don't currently share finances with my partner. We have discussed it for the future. But given that I'm studying and he's working full time, we're kind of in different stages of health, financial life. [00:02:43][67.4]

Michael: [00:02:43] I'm Michael. I'm twenty six. I don't cover the cost of my partner's contraception. I guess when we started dating, she was already covering the cost. Yeah. And she never asked me to. I don't know. I reckon we split things pretty much 50/50. I don't go out and buy stuff thinking, oh yeah, she pays for contraception. So this will make us even. I haven't really thought about it, to be honest. I don't even know how much it costs. I'm a few single nights and I know that they do carry their own protection. That's the reasons why I think it's probably more they're thinking about themselves and thinking about the girl, to be honest. [00:03:13][29.8]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:03:14] Thanks so much, Sarah and Michael, for sharing your story. I think the interesting thing that's come out of that for me is that there seems to be an assumption that women pay for contraception because most of the options are available for women. Men really only have the option of condoms. [00:03:30][15.5]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:03:31] Well, I'm not offended by what he said about not thinking about paying for it. I am disappointed that that is sort of the mentality that's going around. But I'm not offended by it because women have paid for period products since a young age. And so it's natural for us to go into contraception and think that that is our cost. But as we said before, it's mutually beneficial. It should be split or at least cheaper option. [00:03:55][23.6]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:03:56] Have you ever had the conversation in your relationship about who should pay? [00:03:59][3.3]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:04:00] No, but I'm also not on any contraception. Always use is condoms, which I think we split the cost of. [00:04:07][6.7]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:04:07] I've definitely had the conversation in the past with partners and I've said, look, this is costing quite a bit. I don't really like being on it anyway because at the time I was on the pill and I hated that. I really think that it should be shared. And I find that guys usually that I've dated have been really willing to share that cost. I've never had someone say no. But the thing that I do find interesting is I've always had to initiate that conversation. It's not something that any guys ever said to me, oh, hey, you know, I know that you're paying for this. Here's here's some money for it. [00:04:40][32.6]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:04:40] Well, again, I think the expectation is that the woman is paying for it because a lot of contraception, except for the obvious choice of condoms, is angled at the woman. And it's something that we should be taking. But in a lot of situations, not everyone could be taking it. Like I have medical reasons for the fact that I can't take it. And it also affects people's mental health. And so we talk to Emily Deng of one 800 My Options so we can get a better perspective on what contraception is, how it affects people and who should be splitting the cost. [00:05:09][28.2]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:05:09] And we'll let Emily introduce one 800 my options, what they do and how they can support you. [00:05:15][5.1]

Emily: [00:05:15] It's a service run by Women's Health Victoria. It's a state government funded service. And basically we've got a phone line and a website all about sexual and reproductive health. To date, we've talked to around 12000 women about their contraception, abortion, pregnancy options and other sexual health needs. So while we don't give specific medical advice, we just give general information and referrals. We've definitely talked to enough people to sort of know there are a lot of trends around who's paying for what and who's wanting what. [00:05:45][30.2]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:05:46] Can you please explain to us what's involved with those two areas? [00:05:49][3.4]

Emily: [00:05:50] Yeah, sure. So basically, contraception is looking at preventing pregnancies. So it's looking at things like the pill, which is one of the most common ways that people use to prevent pregnancies, but also looking into some of the other options, which might actually be a benefit for people. So things like long acting, contraception options, also looking at things like emergency contraception, permanent contraception options with pregnancy options, which basically sort of looking at when someone's got an unplanned pregnancy, do they want to continue the pregnancy? And if they don't, then what are their abortion options? In Victoria? We also look at things in general, sexual health. So that might be things like STI testing or cervical screening. Cost is absolutely something that most people are thinking about when they're choosing a contraception method. And it's something that unfortunately does really restricts the type of contraception that people can access. And it means for a lot of girls and a lot of women, they're putting their bodies through a lot of trial and error and basically hoping that maybe this one won't give me side effects, maybe this one will work for me, as opposed to being able to, you know, have that free choice of all of these options are accessible. They're all costing the same. They're all going to be affordable for me. And instead, it's just a lot trickier for a lot of women. [00:07:06][76.6]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:07:07] Also with contraception, we're talking about periods as well in that. So when we're when women are due for their periods and buying sort of sanitary products as well, so that can really increase the cost of living basically. [00:07:21][14.2]

Emily: [00:07:22] Yeah. So I think it's one of those things that sets a lot of goals and a lot of women, just as a disclaimer, definitely talking specifically around this woman. And I am aware that a lot of non binary and trans women and transmen have different needs and different costs in relation to their sexual and reproductive health. Get a lot of the women that we talk to, a lot of issues we've heard about, particularly relating to Ciscos and CIS women. So basically back to the idea of periods as such and financial objects, basically for a lot of young women, a lot of young girls, they're spending, you know, so much of their time on their periods and a lot of that is going to cost a lot of money. So think about, you know, how much you've spent on your parents or things like tampons, pads, liners, new undies. If you've blood on your sheets, you might need new sheets, you might need stain remover, you might need chocolate, pain relief, all those things. There's even been studies that sort of suggests women spend around like six years of their life on average on the periods, which is. Yeah, there's been estimates basically saying women spend around ten thousand dollars over their life on period stuff. And the really frustrating thing about it is in a lot of countries, things like pads and tampons are considered luxury goods. So they're taxed at that rate as opposed to being an essential item. So that was the case in Australia until pretty recently. And the fact that, you know, a lot of girls might not have the money to buy goods also means that they're missing school or they're missing work. So there was a study in America that basically found something like one in five girls missed school or left school early because of not having period products and not wanting to bleed everywhere at school. So because of that sort of initial inequality and lack of access to goods, I think a lot of girls already on the back foot when it comes to spending on sexual and reproductive health. And by contrast, in Australia, when pads and tampons were considered luxury condoms weren't. And not saying that condoms shouldn't be like, you know, accessible to everyone. But it's just you can choose not to have sex. You can't really choose not to have it. [00:09:32][130.2]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:09:33] We can't stop this from happening to US month. So if we go back to the burden of contraception, we're talking mostly about women. So there's no real contraception for men at this stage, is there? [00:09:42][9.6]

Emily: [00:09:43] Yeah, pretty much. I mean, the one obvious exception is condoms. And as we've just sort of mentioned, condoms are really easy to get for most people. They're very affordable. You can get them at the supermarket, you can get them at the server 24/7. You don't need a doctor to write you a. Grip's, you don't need to travel a bunch of different types to see which one is going to give you side effects or not, you don't need to take time off work to get condoms. So for the majority of CIS men, condoms are just such an easy way of accessing contraception. And that ease isn't really something that women have access to when they're talking about their contraception options. There's a few things like services, a few studies, and a lot of work is being done looking into hormonal contraceptive options for men, but for a few different reasons. That's just not really taken off in the same way that hormonal contraception for women has. And again, that just sort of means that the responsibility does generally lie with women. [00:10:43][59.9]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:10:44] So, Emily, the main focus of our show is relationships and money and all kinds of taboo subjects about how those two huge aspects of our lives are intertwined. Do you find and I think you've already touched on it already, but do you find that those trends in terms of women taking on that burden of paying for the cost of contraception and reproductive health requirements? [00:11:11][27.2]

Emily: [00:11:12] Yeah, absolutely. So the majority of the people who've contacted US service, absolutely. Women and a lot of the times when men do call, it's for a long term partner. So I think there's definitely a huge trend where women feel that they are responsible for whatever happens in a sexual relationship or in a romantic relationship. And I guess it's something that's quite frustrating, but not really talked about that much. For a lot of people beginning relationships, there's sort of an assumption that women are going to be the ones who take care of the pregnancy prevention side of things. And if the guy wants to wear a condom to stop Starzl, then that's sort of a plus. There's always sort of the idea that if something goes wrong and if there is an unplanned pregnancy, well, that's still unfortunately seen as the woman's responsibility. And for a lot of people who contact us, it still is. They are the ones paying for it, both literally with their money or in terms of their bodies and in terms of their emotions and their time off work and that sort of stuff. Yeah, with contraception and relationships, I think something that we need to do more of is actually be more comfortable having discussions with partners or potential partners around what are we doing from not just a health and family planning perspective. So that's things like, you know, do we want to get pregnant or do we need STI testing? But also just from a financial perspective. So who's going to be paying for what? Who's going to take time off work to do this? Or we both going to do it? Do we split it evenly? What happens if something goes wrong? How are we going to deal with that financially and otherwise? So, yeah, I guess the other thing to consider as well is that a lot of people don't know all of their options around contraception and around pregnancy and abortion, which again, can lead to the cost being higher than it necessarily has to be. So, again, that's something we can help with. I think just having that conversation in the first place is definitely the first. [00:13:13][120.7]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:13:14] You're listening to meet pay love a podcast where we talk all about money and relationships, where it's going to take a break right now to hear this message from our sponsors. Once we come back, I'm going to tell us a little bit more about her current situation. [00:13:26][12.4]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:14:03] And usually we ask our interviewees, I would have been personally about them, are you in a relationship? [00:14:08][5.5]

Emily: [00:14:09] Yes, I am. So I've been with my partner for nearly eight years now. [00:14:14][4.6]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:14:14] And are you dating a man or a woman? [00:14:17][2.7]

Emily: [00:14:17] I'm dating a man. I'm bisexual. I've been interested in men and women, but yet very aware that there are different trends or like different sexual and reproductive health issues, depending on the gender of the person you're seeing and your own gender. So I'm speaking sort of primarily from being in a relationship as this woman with this man. [00:14:38][20.3]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:14:38] And what has your personal experience been in terms of bringing up these issues in your relationships past and present, about any things that really stand out to you as being interesting in that respect? [00:14:49][10.7]

Emily: [00:14:50] Yes, I guess one thing with a lot of women who date women, there's an assumption that because you can't get pregnant that you don't really need to worry about sexual and reproductive health, which isn't necessarily the case. There was still a lot of undiagnosed STIs that are on the increase for everyone in our age bracket in Victoria. So I think that's a big misconception that needs to sort of be explored a little bit more. But with relationships with CIS men, I think there's definitely always been like, at least for me, an understanding that I don't want to be pregnant any time soon. So we do need to use something to make sure we're not getting pregnant. And yeah, I definitely had that sort of issue with a lack of sex education and a lack of awareness of options growing up around what we could use. So as a young person, it was definitely just a lot of condoms and a lot of pills, a lot of which weren't very good for me in terms of side effects and impacts on my mental health. It was just a bad time. And then, yeah, one day I was like getting really sick of it. Talk to my GP and they suggested an implant in my arm. And that's just been such a godsend for me. It's coming up to me on it. And yeah, it's just been so good, really, like good peace of mind in terms of not worrying about being pregnant. It's also something that's lost three years at a time. So it's not something you have to remember to take every day. And with the pill, because I've got a really terrible digestive system and get sick really easily. It was something I was always a bit worried about. If I was, you know, digesting it properly, if I was remembering to take it at the right time and all that sort of stuff. So, again, in terms of costs, I think the pill it was always something that I paid for myself. It was never something that I expected anyone else to pay for, even though I guess, yeah, definitely would have been the other person's responsibility as well. And yeah, in the current relationship with the long-acting contraception, I think it's something that we've symbolically decided to split the cost of, not so much because of the literal cost, but more just as an understanding of I've had to try all these different methods of contraception. And this is something that is for the both of us in our relationship to have sex and not be pregnant. So it's important to just have that symbolic split. So, yeah, that's obviously not going to work for everyone. Some people will think that's completely unnecessary. But yeah, just for me, in my own sort of experience of other contraception methods, which have been not quite as nice on my body, I think it was just important for me to do. [00:17:32][162.0]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:17:33] I think that's excellent advice. Thank you. So I think that we've gone through now contraception pretty well. What are some and you've touched on this already, the issue of abortion and what happens when you do fall pregnant and that may be an unwanted pregnancy. What are some trends that you say around abortion at one 800? My options, [00:17:53][20.0]

Emily: [00:17:53] yeah. So I think unplanned pregnancy is definitely the most common reason that people call us. And it's something that's incredibly common. So around half of all women in Australia will have an unplanned pregnancy. Yeah, we definitely know someone or someone who was an unplanned pregnancy. And that's pretty shocking despite the fact that, you know, 70 percent of women use contraception. So this isn't just because women are irresponsible, it's because it just happens. Even if people used contraception absolutely perfectly, they would still be millions of unplanned pregnancies happening around the world, which is not to put people off using contraception, like please use contraception, that it is an extremely common thing. Despite that, it can be still really stressful for a lot of women. So abortion is one of those topics that can be really taboo. A lot of people don't really talk about it. It's not really something that is publicized. A lot of health professionals even don't really know much about it, which is pretty shocking because a quarter of women in Australia will have an abortion at some point. Their lives, so, again, really common. I guess the main thing to mention, first off, is that there's a lot of misconceptions around abortion and a lot of the people who call us overwhelmingly are women, sort of in their late 20s, mid 30s, who've already got children. So I think the first thing that people expect is that it's a lot of like, you know, irresponsible teenagers who are just, like, silly and don't know what they're doing, but not the majority of callers sort of in their late 20s, mid 30s range. A lot of them already have kids. So they've got a very clear idea of what it means to have a child. And the very clear in that they don't want more. And that's, you know, for a variety of reasons, including just not feeling ready for another child, not having financial stability, especially during covid last year. And a lot of women as well who might have things like family violence or health problems. So it is just a really common thing for a variety of reasons. A lot of the callers that we've had specifically at one at hundreds have been women who were calling. About a third of them have been really worried about the cost of the abortion, which is pretty concerning. It sort of has been pretty clear to us in those cases, the women are definitely paying the costs by themselves. The pregnancy partner either isn't in the picture or is deliberately not wanting to be there or wanting them to continue the pregnancy or for a variety of reasons, they've had to sort of realize they need to pay for this on their own. So the cost of an abortion can be really stressful. It ranges from zero dollars all the way up to ten thousand dollars. Yeah. So that's for a lot of people. Ten thousand dollars isn't just an easy amount of money to just fork out randomly. And yeah. Basically given that you know during Karvelas you up to half of our callers were mentioning financial difficulty, it's absolutely unachievable. So I think there's a few things to mention about why the cost can be so high. So the first thing is how many weeks pregnant you are. So basically the more pregnant you are, the more expensive it can be. So in Victoria, it's legal up until twenty four weeks. But the closer you are to that sort of 20 week mark, the more expensive it does get. It basically increases by like the thousands of dollars at a private clinic at that point. The next thing is whether or not you've got a Medicare card or health care card or private insurance. A lot of people who don't have Medicare. So we're thinking like international students, people on partner visas, people on working holiday visas just basically have to fork out so much money to access any sort of health care, let alone something that's already quite expensive for people with Medicare. So that, again, is a huge problem. And if we're thinking about age groups for international students, that's a cohort that's very likely, you know, experiencing relationships and sexual activity, definitely at risk of unplanned pregnancy. The other thing is the type of abortion that you're having will also play a part in how much it costs. So in Victoria, there's two types you can have. There's medication and there's surgery. So with the medication, you can have that before nine weeks. And generally that is a lot cheaper than the surgery because there's no anesthetic and you basically take the medications at home. So for a lot of people, that's actually a lot more convenient and a lot of GP's can actually do it as well. So moving on to the last point that affects costs is where you're actually getting the abortion done. So most people think abortion, private clinic, but there's actually a lot of GP's that can do the medication, abortion. And if your GP does bulk billing, then potentially you don't need to pay that much out of pocket at all. There's also potentially some public hospitals, some community health clinics that might be able to help, especially if you have complex needs or if you're experiencing family violence, if you're experiencing complex mental health issues, those sorts of things, there are definitely affordable services out there for them. So, yeah, I guess that's sort of the main things to consider when thinking about abortion and ending pregnancies. For a lot of women, though, if they're unable to get an abortion or if they've got an unplanned pregnancy and they want to continue the pregnancy, there's still a lot of a lot of costs involved in raising a child. And again, a lot of that burden does fall disproportionately on women. So if we assume that they have a really supportive partner, assume that the partner sticking around and best case scenario for all of those things, even ignoring things like medical costs and nappies and toys and all those sorts of things, there's also a lot of other things that will affect the woman's financial prospects. So things like childcare, things like taking leave, either paid or unpaid leave. Haitian and living expenses, and usually they affect the woman's career prospects and her super contributions a lot more than a male partners. So I guess, yes, there's been estimates basically for Australian families that a middle class, the average cost of raising two kids from birth to 18 is like eight hundred thousand dollars. That was like a report nearly 10 years ago. So that's definitely going up. In the meantime. Yes, sir. Basically, kids aren't cheap, contraception definitely cheaper. And yet there's a lot of long term impacts that can have on a woman's career. Not saying that, you know, obviously women should have the right to do whatever they want to do, whether that's have kids or not. But there are definitely just costs and burdens that I felt disproportionately by women in the relationship. Wow. [00:24:51][418.1]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:24:52] Those were some really sobering comments there from Emily. And thank you so much for reaching out and coming on the show. We really appreciate hearing your comments. [00:25:00][7.9]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:25:01] I think one thing that really stuck out for me was her comment, and I quote, A child is more expensive than contraception, although no doubt about that, because, like, what did she say? It costs about 800000 dollars to raise a child in Australia. And that was done from a survey, what, five to 10 years ago, whereas over your lifetime, a woman's been ten thousand dollars on period products and contraception. And it is [00:25:27][26.0]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:25:27] really frustrating, obviously, that women have to go through that cost and how there was the luxury tax and all of those things just really add to the fact that women do have to just have more outgoings and payments in their every day to day life. [00:25:41][14.1]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:25:42] Well, it does put us in a different financial situation that I don't think people have thought of before. And to be honest, even personally, having made those sort of financial decisions, it's not even a financial decision. It's a personal decision of having to buy period products. I didn't think about the financial burden that it put on me. Ten thousand dollars is a fair bit of money over a lifetime. [00:26:03][21.8]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:26:04] Yeah, but it's not a decision. Like we're just in survival mode. We're like, OK, I'm about to be pretty crude there. But, you know, when it happens, you got to go to the store. You can't just not do anything about it. I don't mean to be crude for you. You're either bleeding or you cause you're spending money. [00:26:20][16.0]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:26:21] Yeah, exactly. [00:26:23][1.5]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:26:24] So I suppose here what we're really talking about is then that creates a pattern where women then go on the pill for whatever reason, and then because the contraceptive methods are only really available for women, then women end up paying for contraception in their romantic relationships, too. [00:26:39][15.0]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:26:40] Well, that's the thing. How much is a packet of condoms? It's like eight dollars for how many. And there was like roughly maybe a dollar per condom rather than for the pill. It could be anywhere between like ten dollars if you get a generic brand and eighty dollars if you get a good one [00:26:56][16.9]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:26:57] for about three months or about [00:26:58][1.3]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:26:58] three months. And so that's a lot more money. [00:27:00][1.9]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:27:01] Yeah, that's right. And I think if there's anything to take away from this episode, it's firstly we know that there are different contraception methods and options out there. So don't just settle for the pill because that's what your friends are doing. So that's what your parents have done. So firstly, please go out and take those options, go and call up one 800 my options, or speak to a medical professional, [00:27:22][20.9]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:27:23] I think, as well. When it comes to contraception, there are a lot of side effects that people need to be concerned about. And so, like, personally, I can't I'm not on the pill because it calls too many side effects for me. And things happened and I ended up in hospital. So I'm not on the pill for those reasons, but I do use other contraception so it doesn't work for everyone. So it is important that although cost should definitely be in your mind, you should be figuring out what's best for you. [00:27:49][26.7]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:27:50] Exactly. And then I think second to that is if you are in a relationship, have the conversation with your partner, just say to them outright, like, hey, I'm paying X, Y, Z all the time for the privilege of us not to get pregnant, assuming that, you know, that's not at the stage of life where you're at. Then why shouldn't they be contributing? [00:28:10][19.7]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:28:11] As we said, it's mutually beneficial, like the same thing as buying dinner for your partner and you, you know, is going to buy dinner and then have him eat it all or let you eat it all. You buy dinner for both of you. You could split the cost or they could pay for it next time. What an analogy I was. I don't think I could think of it. [00:28:31][19.8]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:28:32] Yeah, definitely. And I think it's really, really great that in Victoria we do have a state government that has put products, free pads and tampons in all government schools because it really sets up a vibe when you're young that periods are normal, periods are nothing to be ashamed of. You don't have to have a cost to be able to come to school and be able to do your work. It's so important and I'm really frustrated that that wasn't there when I was young. But you know what, let's take the wins when we get them, New South Wales now starting a trial and so South Australia to have free pads and tampons in school. And I can see that soon. By the time if I have kids, it will be everywhere because it's just it's just a basic human right. [00:29:16][44.0]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:29:17] You know, I'd love to hear from the end of this. Yeah. I'd love it if there was any cis gendered men who reached out to us and told us that they offered to pay for their partner's contraception. [00:29:29][11.8]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:29:30] Definitely without her asking, [00:29:32][1.8]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:29:33] without asking, offer to pay and see what happens. The same thing with same sex couples. Obviously, it's a different sort of situation. And then perhaps they are both sharing the cost. But I'd love to hear about how you split the cost of contraception and other conclusions that you have that you could reach out to us with. So if you do have any solutions, please feel free to reach out to us via email at Zoe O'Connell at Equity dot com or head up our Instagram at Mapai. Love. You can fact check us. You could tell us we're wrong. We love it. [00:30:04][31.5]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:30:05] I do want to say, just on the flip side, to be fair to the argument, I do often hear women say things like, well, I'm on it for different reasons, I'm on it for health reasons. I'm on it because my acne or my weight gain or whatever. I still think the added bonus of it is contraception. If you are sexually active and that your partner gets that added bonus from it as well, because it's a mutual benefit that you're not having kids if you don't want to have [00:30:32][27.6]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:30:32] kids in a suspended relationship. [00:30:34][1.4]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:30:35] Yes, but I still think that you should still share that cost even if you're on the contraception regardless. I still think that it's mutually beneficial. So you should be sharing that cost. [00:30:45][10.3]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:30:45] And as a disclaimer, a lot of what we have talk about is forces, gendered relationships. And there's a lot of costs that go towards being in a same sex relationship where you are using contraception to stop all these guys in days. And I'm pretty sure that's all of them. Sort of tough to say. I don't have to say STI and STDs anymore. I think it's just one of them, but I don't know which one it is. And that's it for this episode of Meet Pela. Please feel free to reach out to us at Karmal, also at Equity dot com or through our Instagram ameet. Pray, love, don't forget to write and review us on whatever podcast platform you are listening to this on. Thank you to all those who already have another podcast you can check out from our equity mates team is get started investing for all those amateur investors like myself who are just coming into some disposable income. [00:31:31][45.6]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:31:32] And our next episode, we're going to be talking to Kelsey from Finance Money Life, and she's going to be talking to us about parental leave options [00:31:41][9.2]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:31:42] for both men and women, same sex couples and couples who are also adopting. [00:31:45][3.9]

Kelsey: [00:31:46] One thing I'll say that a lot of people don't know, and it can come as a little bit of an alarm when they've done their budget. A lot of people are right. I'm going to have 20 weeks late at my pay. They might be making one hundred twenty thousand dollars, maybe a year if they're really lucky and they're doing all the calculations going, OK, that's great. I'm still going to get 18 weeks or 20 weeks worth of pay. And they set that money aside. The week's pay is not paid at your salary. It's paid at the national base minimum wage. [00:32:18][31.4]

Carmel Moorhead: [00:32:18] And that's it for our episode of Meet Pay Love. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening. And we hope that you tune in again next week. [00:32:24][6.4]

Zoe Moorhead: [00:32:25] Feel free to Get In Touch bye . [00:32:25][0.0]

[1845.4]

More About

Meet your hosts

  • Carmel Moorhead

    Carmel Moorhead

    Carmel is in a relationship of three and a half years with her partner, and they own a house together and a dog called Ruby. She says, 'despite my partner also being a lawyer, I still win all arguments'. Carmel loves gardening and can tell the difference between a cucumber pant and zucchini plant just by looking.
  • Zoe Moorhead

    Zoe Moorhead

    Zoe is in a relationship with her partner of two years and they've lived together for the past 6 months. They have a cat fur baby named Dumpling, he’s a sweet boy with a fluffy face, but according to Zoe, 'he’s currently fighting with his plant brothers and sisters in the form of digging warfare'. In her spare time, Zoe is an amateur potter and has recently discovered the world of yoga and essential oil diffusers (would recommend).

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