The International Symposium on Recent Advances in Female Reproductive Health Care was organized in Helsinki, Finland. The symposium focused attention on female reproductive health care as a central element in the provision of services for moderating unwanted fertility. The most relevant aspects to biomedical scientists engaged in developing contraceptives intended primarily for use in publicly financed delivery programs include efficacy, cost and marginal utility, logistics, and abuse. At present the most effective methods are the NORPLANT contraceptive subdermal implant system and the Copper T 380A intrauterine device. NORPLANT has proved to be as effective as sterilization, and the TCu 380A is almost that effective. Researchers have suggested that the additional effectiveness of modern methods influences fertility only marginally as compared with the enormous impact from using any method at all. This translates into 18 births for no contraceptive use; 3 births for abstinence or withdrawal; 2 for condoms; 1 for oral contraceptives (OCs); and none for the IUD. In developing the Copper T IUDs and the NORPLANT system, the Population Council and those who participated in its development of contraceptives were concerned about the ultimate price to the public sector and produced prices of about US $1 for the TCu 380A and US $23 for the NORPLANT system when they are provided to developing country family planning programs. The corresponding private sector prices in the USA are about US $150 for the TCu 380A and US $300 for NORPLANT. The NORPLANT system is viewed by some US officials as a short-cut to solutions of larger social problems. When a woman was convicted of incorrigible child abuse, a judge suggested that she accept the NORPLANT system as an alternative to time in prison. The serious arguments leveled against IUDs, implants, OCs, and injectables have to be considered when trying to provide women with more effective and safer contraceptives.