The researcher behind free birth control in British Columbia: Dr. Wendy Norman

For $19,000, you could buy a reliable used car. You could throw a wedding or go on a once-in-a-lifetime vacation. Or, if you're a woman in Canada, $19,000 could cover the cost of birth control over your lifetime.

For women in British Columbia, that price tag was slashed in 2023. Thanks to Dr. Wendy Norman's research efforts, prescription contraception is now completely free.

"It was very clear to me as a family physician seeing people come in with unintended pregnancies that cost was the biggest factor. They couldn't afford the most effective and discreet methods that help prevent pregnancy," said Dr. Norman, Director of the Contraception and Abortion Research Team at the University of British Columbia, who was inspired to become a researcher to tackle this issue. She found that on top of making contraception more accessible, offering it for free would cost the province less than managing unintended pregnancies, saving $27 million dollars per year.

The results were immediate. Within a year, access to long-acting reversible contraceptives like IUDs and implants jumped by 50%.

Dr. Norman's impact on reproductive health policy doesn't stop there. In 2017, the abortion pill, mifepristone, became available in Canada. However, it was initially set to be very restricted: only physicians would have been licensed to dispense the pill to patients, after extensive training. "It was clear that only providers who were already offering surgical abortion services were going to implement this new medication abortion," said Dr. Norman, meaning that the pill would not solve the access issues Canada was facing when it came to abortion.

So, Dr. Norman led the charge to make the abortion pill, mifepristone, a standard prescription in Canada. "You've got the key to better abortion access right here," said Dr. Norman, "all you have to do is make this a normal prescription dispensed by pharmacists."

Within a year of mifepristone's launch in Canada, nearly all restrictions were lifted, making Canada the first country in the world to treat mifepristone like any other prescription.

With these restrictions lifted, the introduction of mifepristone saw the number of abortion providers in Canada more than triple, with rural areas seeing a nearly twentyfold increase.

Dr. Norman credits the success to collaboration. "As researchers, we're trusted conveners," she explained. "We bring together policymakers, clinicians, and advocates—people who might not otherwise sit at the same table."