Men rush to get vasectomies after Roe ruling
June 29, 2022 at 3:12 p.m. EDT
A vasectomy is a form of permanent sterilization that prevents sperm from flowing through the vas deferens and combining with semen. The National Center for Health Statistics reported that in 2002, the main reasons women provided as to why they were relying on a vasectomy as a form of birth control is that they or their partners already had all the children they wanted. But from 2011 to 2015, other reasons for relying on vasectomies, including medical reasons and problems with other types of birth control, became more common.
There has been a push for vasectomies in anticipation of Roe being overturned and antiabortion legislation taking effect in states across the country. Stein and other vasectomy proponents have taken to the streets and child support offices to encourage people to get the procedure. Marc Goldstein, a urologist and director of the Center for Male Reproductive Medicine and Microsurgery at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York, said he usually sees twice as many patients per week for vasectomy reversals compared to vasectomies.
“Now it’s the other way around,” he said. “So it’s been a dramatic shift. And this [decision] is only going to further impact that in terms of increasing requests.”
It isn’t the first time a significant news event has caused an uptick in vasectomies. Goldstein said vasectomy requests spiked after the Great Recession of 2008 as more men began to worry about raising additional children while under financial stress.
Read the full story from the Washington Post HERE.
