Everything free for everybody

 

While the educational authorities debated making school dinners free for the duration of pandemic and as many hope, afterwards, Scotland is set to make period products free for all. Period poverty is when those on low incomes can't afford, or access, suitable period products. With average periods lasting about five days, it can cost up to £8 a month for tampons and pads, and some women struggle to afford the cost.

MSPs unanimously approved a legal duty on local authorities to ensure that free items such as tampons and sanitary pads are available to "anyone who needs them". It will be for the country's 32 councils to decide what practical arrangements are put in place, but they must give "anyone who needs them" access to different types of period products "reasonably easily" and with "reasonable dignity".

Thus in regard to this particular product fulfilling the Marxist aspiration of "to each according to need."

Now is the time to advocate free access as a basic right.