All that - and safe and effective contraception was beyond the reach or burdening the poorer and younger women - and there's the fact that in most nations where contraception is already free (and often don't even considered "a medication" anymore, not in the public's mind even if medically it's the proper term), it is also recognized as a fundamental right of women to decide to conceive or not, and it is socially accepted that forcing them to resort to means like sexual abstinence or a permanent operation in order to be able to avoid conception and having the full choice they have a right to, is not acceptable nor fair, and only leads to an increase of the number of abortions, something seen as far worse. There's the fact that to most people who are pro-choice, abortion remains a fairly abhorent procedure nonetheless and usually fairly traumatic beside (not to mention its costs to the public healthcare system), but that society would make it legal and free, and believes it has to be at the disposal of women as a last resort in cases of unwanted pregancies (though forbidden past a certain stage, not for moral - it is up to the mother - but for health reasons). As for the rights of a a prospective father to prevent an abortion, it's been ruled no man can't force any woman to carry a child she doesn't want. It's a violation of her rights over her own body. But most pro-choice people still believe contraception is by a long shot the ethical and responsible choice over abortion, and universal right to contraception and good (and mandatory) sexual education in schools combined have been solidly proven through local and foreign experiences to be the best way to limit the number of abortions.

You mentionned the moral/religious "issues", and that's a good example of why I was saying the US are considered behind (for a western nation... no one is suggesting it's a stone throw from Afghanistan or the like!) in matters of women rights. The same issues stood in the way in other nations once. It's just that it's a fight the feminists have already won over the churches/activist faithfuls and have convinced the men to support as well. Our catholic authorities (for e.g.) oppose contraception just as vehemently as the US bishops do (and doing so are just as much at odds with their own faithfuls as they are in the US, where the number of Catholic women who approve of and/or use contraception is over 90% apparently). Women stood against them in the 60s and won (and speaking for Québec alone, the catholic church has paid very dearly for failing to adapt to evolving mentalities and very bitterly opposing them and being so mysogyne - they kind of forgot women traditionally were the ones primarly maintaining religious traditions at home and passing them on to their sons and daughters, far more so than dads. Women rights are not the only reason for the clash (men felt oppressed as well), but in a matter of a two-three decades, we went from being an extremely devout and massively practicing people - very similar to Poland in our type of religious practices (people here considered the American catholics permissive back then! How dared good catholics tolerate horrors like Hollywood's!)- to near empty churches that get sold for condos and nightclubs or simply close, a clergy near incapable to find new young priests to the point parishes get merged or must share a single priest, and the religious orders being thrown out of nearly all public institutions from education to politics to healthcare that they had run for nearly two centuries. More recently, the government abolished denominational schools in the public system - this did violate the religious rights of everyone not christian- and with that courses related to the teachings of a specific denomination. People who wish to send their kids to a catholic/protestant/jewish/islamic school have to send them to private schools and pay - and the churches were told it's up to them and parents to teach their beliefs to their children, not to the state/society. The protestant churches in the other provinces have not gone through a similar crisis, just some decline during the period like in most nations)

Our constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protect the rights of individuals over organizations like churches and they and their believers can't use the constitution to remove themselves from financing any governemental services under the pretense that it violates their freedom of belief (pretense, because there's not even any prescription in faith against providing money to someone else that will be used for something you morally oppose for yourself). So yeah, even catholic priests in Canada pay taxes like everyone else and thus finance aborptions and contraception and a whole lot of other things they oppose morally (subventions to various groups, to Art they deem immoral, to TV shows and movies they oppose, to the education system where many things they oppose are taught etc.). It's in the end the very same thing as having them pay for the insurances of their employees that would cover contraception, it's just far less irritating (and much harder to find ground to attack this legally) for them since its part of a public system. What Catholics (and anyone.. it's just that I was catholic once so I know their issues better) are fully garanteed is, for e.g. the right to preach or speak publicly against contraception or abortion (it's not working, no more than it does in the US, and it's not an issue the priests are too keen to bring up - contraception anyway, aborption is something else...), and to individually refuse to use contraception out of moral principles. They can exclude from communion or church a woman who has aborted if they wish (for any moral motive of their choice, really), just like they can perfectly legally refuse to perform the wedding of a gay couple or to exclude a married gay couple from their churches (I've not heard they do) - or divorced people (something else they've stopped doing long ago). But they have to live with the fact gays have been recognized the right to wed, that any woman of the age to conceive have a right to free contraception if she chooses and if she fits the requirements of the regulations, to an aborption. That's how we understand religious freedom and the division of church and state. Heck, we even have things that would create riots in some parts of the US, such as a mandatory course in elementary schools that teaches the fundamentals and ethics of all three monotheisms (the majority here as come to believe it's a good and civically desirable thing for everyone to understand the main religions present in our population). Catholic groups have tried to gain the right to remove their children from the course claiming it violated their freedom or religion. The Supreme Court decided nothing about the mandatory course violated the Charter of rights. Other things that would likely raise problems in the US would include forbidding state employees from displaying any religious symbols during work hours, or forbidding symbols and rites (eg: a prayer at the beginning of a session) from civic institutions - for instance in city halls and such. And religious issues have a played for a few decades now a near absent role in our politics - we even have a evangelist PM at the moment that many keep a watchful eye on (we remain worried looking at the US experience) but the issue is rarely raised publicly or debated as most Canadians (a fair percentage of which ignores what his faith even is...) consider it's his private business how he worships - and as long as he promised not to touch or reconsider existing rights and laws such as gay rights, abortion, trying to bring back capital punishment and so on no one really cares (the issue of the faith of a politician being raised during a campaign the way this is commonly done in US politics would be considered an intrusion in his or her private life by (most) Canadian voters, just like when a gay candidate campaigned, his sexual orientation wasn't discussed at all by his opponents and it was up to voters in the booth to decide if it was or wasn't a factor to consider - no one should be discriminated against for a job based on his race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, including politicians).