I could only imagine the positive impact a noticeable increase in condom usage would bring to the world. I feel like it would be a silent yet very beneficial change if condom usage went up about 10% globally.
People who are at risk for having unprotected sex probably need the condoms to be easily available (i.e free in high-schools, free in bars/nightclubs, etc.). If they have enough forethought in order to make a trip to one of the places where they are free, they probably have enough forethought to buy them themselves without problems.
Besides, I don't want to use condoms that came from a bowl at a public place. I remember the first time I bought a bunch of condoms at a young age, not only was it terribly embarrassing and expensive at that time (I wasn't working, try explaining to your parents you need money for sex), it wasn't fun hiding them from my parents either.
I imagine this is a bigger problem for women - imagine a mother finds a dozen condoms in her 15 year old's purse.
School/work/etc.
Because I do agree that not many people are going to make a trip to Planned Parenthood, park, and go in just to get some free condoms.
I don't see a problem with condoms from a public bowl. I used them throughout my freshman year without a problem. As for your embarrassment factor, that's a problem regardless of free or paid. That's just the stigma around sexual activity in general.
However, my experience living in Chile is that in countries that often need it more, they are much more expensive to get. In Chile, they were roughly twice as expensive as in my home country Belgium. Add in the big difference in wages and we're at approx. 4x difference. The argument that they are available for free is a joke, since it requires people to go to a doctor instead of simply a pharmacy.
I also believe that for many people, the difference between cheap and free is a big one.
And let's not forget the machines in a huge number of gas station rest rooms across the country. Most of them are $0.75.
If a person cannot find free or ultra-cheap condoms today, the person really is not trying and probably should be doing other things.
Also, as many of the folks at work discovered, the free contraceptives were accompanied with a larger than cost increase in premiums.
We can go around hand-waving and saying how irresponsible people are, or we can recognize how people are, were and will be and make sure they don't accidentally reproduce for no good reason.
We know how, we just need to stop expecting people to be other than they already are for a minute and start a world-wide free-condoms campaign. Where's Bill Gates, make it happen! :)
Because you know who's supporting that single mother and all the difficulty that ensues? You and I, with our tax dollars and otherwise.
That is the problem that condom availability will not fix. The only system solutions are pushing girls into sports and other extra curricular activities, and getting more male teachers in elementary schools to provide proper role models. I'm well away from my desk so I don't have the study references, but both help in this regard.