The Surprisingly Fraught Question of Who Pays for Birth Control
In 2017, Taylor Kay Phillips was debating two things: whether she wanted to switch from the pill to an IUD, and, if she did, whether she should ask her boyfriend, Felipe Torres, to help pay for it. At the time, Phillips—now a comedy writer in New York City—was unemployed, and her insurance plan wouldn’t cover the $1,100 bill. But she was hesitant to ask Torres to pitch in. Phillips didn’t know anyone else who had split the cost of birth control with a partner, and she had questions. If her boyfriend paid for part of her IUD, would that mean she had less autonomy over her own body? They had been dating for only a few months, and copper IUDs, the type that Phillips wanted, typically last for up to 12 years; if she and Torres broke up, would she need to reimburse him? But when they sat down to talk about the IUD, he offered to pay for
