Legal action to force the Dutch state to extend universal health cover to include contraception has been launched by two human rights groups.

Bureau Clara Wichmann, which represents women’s rights, and progressive lobby group DeGoedeZaak, say contraception should be included in the compulsory basic health insurance package, whose contents are decided by ministers.

In a letter to health minister Bruno Bruins, Bureau Clara Wichmann said contraception was a ‘fundamental reproductive right’.

The letter included a court summons asking judges to rule that the current law breaches article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to privacy, and the UN treaty on women’s rights CEDAW. They argue it also violates the Dutch constitutional ban on discrimination because women are obliged to cover the cost of contraception for both sexes.

Contraception was taken out of the basic health package in 2011 on the advice of the health insurers’ collective body College voor Zorgverzekeringen, which argued it was not a ‘medical necessity’. Women over the age of 18 have to claim for contraceptives out of a supplementary plan or pay privately.

Research by the international medical agency Doctors of the World found that 8% of women in the Netherlands had gone without contraceptive protection in the past year because they were short of money.

The two organisations have also sent a petition to the Dutch parliament with 55,000 signatures calling for basic health cover for contraception to be restored.

Anniek de Ruijter, director of Bureau Clara Wichmann, said: ‘In a world without contraception, women would have far more children and their access to education and financial independence would be undermined.

‘We have prospered greatly from women’s ability to engage in family planning. Women now have to bear the cost of something that the whole of society benefits from. That is unjust in principle.’