Maybe I’m opening a can of worms here, and I feel like I have to throw in a few caveats: (1) I am as pro-choice as they come, (2) I think what’s happening in Red America re: new abortion restrictions is heinous, and (3) I think even if SCOTUS overrules Roe you’ll just start seeing a bunch of Blue states openly ignoring that decision anyway. But still, something I keep thinking is that maybe a world with vastly restrictive abortion laws would be more bearable if laws & operational norms regarding vasectomies in men were massively liberalized.
I mean, in my own case as somebody who is about as interested in having children as I am in having an un-anesthetized root canal, I found it incredibly maddening when a doctor turned down my request for a vasectomy on the basis that I was too young (26 at the time). I just think that, given that vasectomies are the most effective form of birth control, and that most men generally don’t want to have kids anyway, a way to get around this Handmaid’s Tale-like situation with onerous Red State abortion laws would be to broaden the availability of vasectomies writ large. The procedure could be made universally available to all men above the age of 16 and then subsidized in some way so that it would be either free or low cost.
I obviously don’t know how tenable this idea would be - or even what the take up of this policy would look like - but I just think it could constitute some sort of workaround for the potential illegalized abortion era we may be entering. What do you think?
I think it’s a great idea, and hard for the anti-choice contingent to argue against without making explicit their fundie anti-woman agenda.
Personally, I think that if personhood begins at conception, Blue States should pass laws declaring that citizenship begins at conception, too. If a fetus was conceived in America then, regardless of where it was actually born, it’s entitled to full citizenship rights. Hey, you can’t have one definition of person for abortion and another for citizenship.
I don’t know if it’ll do any good, but it sure will be interesting to see how the anchor baby apocalypse crowd squares that little circle.
If they ever come up with a reliably reversible vasectomy, this might work out, but probably not otherwise.
I thought I remembered reading about a procedure wherein, instead of cutting and cauterizing the vas deferens, they used a pair of little clamps. The theory was that when and if the guy wanted children, they would remove the clamps, and then re-install them after he was done. I don’t think it worked out - too much scar tissue so that the vas never reopened up. Plus, the longer it’s been since the vasectomy, the less likely it is that it can be successfully reversed in the sense that you actually get someone pregnant. So a vasectomy at age 16 and a reversal attempt at 26 is going to be different from a reversal at age 35.
When I was snipped, my surgeon told me that I should consider it irreversible.
My wife had an abortion when our first child was a year old. She had an IUD and experienced a rare failure. I didn’t want a vasectomy, nor did we decide to never have anymore children.
I have friends that have had pregnancy complications, including preeclampsia and ectopic pregnancy. At least one legislator in Ohio believe that ectopic pregnancies can be surgically relocated, and that the tubectomy my mother had was an abortion.
Why don’t we get the government out of the decision altogether?
Most men want to have kids. You’re an exception, not the norm.
16 years old aren’t even deemed competent to decide if they want to have sex, but you think they are competent to decide that they won’t ever want children? I’m quite a bot older than you, and I changed my mind about a lot of things since I was 16.
I understand that you find irritating to be told that you don’t know what you want, but :
-Vasectomy is often irreversible
-Wanting to have children or not is something many people drastically change their mind about during their life. In both directions.
If I were a doctor and still 26 yo, I’d probably agree with you and be perfectly fine with operating you. If I were a doctor now, I too would refuse to do this surgery on a 26 yo.
There are plenty of contraception methods that aren’t irreversible.
AFAIK, a large proportion of health insurance companies already offer free or low-cost vasectomies.
I doubt it’s the availability that’s holding more widespread adoption of vasectomy back; rather I’m pretty sure it’s squeamishness about doctors cutting on one’s nutsack and the associated plumbing, along with fear that complications might leave them impotent or de-masculinized.
I don’t doubt that an ignorant few don’t realize that it’s not the same thing as castration as well.
I’d like to second puddleglum’s question - what do you think this will accomplish?
I don’t have stats (but I won’t let that stop me!), but I suspect that a significant percentage of abortions result from couplings where the man isn’t worrying overmuch about the future beyond the next half hour. Waiting to get an invasive surgery first sounds like rather a lot to expect from a horny teenager - or a horny college student - or a horny adult male, for that matter.
Not to mention, the largest opposition to abortion comes from religious fundamentalists - the ‘temple of the body’ types. You think they’re going to consider elective surgery a good approach when they already have the perfectly workable solution of telling other people what to do instead?
Anti abortion activists are to a good degree motivated by misogyny and religious fundamentalism. If they truly opposed abortion they’d favor sex education and easy access to contraception since these things lower abortion rates. But they oppose them.
Ironically being religious made you more tolerant of abortion, it’s religious fundamentalism that makes you opposed.
Age 16 is waaaay too young IMO. 16 year old kids have foolishly close horizons and very limited world experience when contemplating their futures. I also don’t think your statement that “most men don’t want to have children” is at all accurate. At best, maybe “at a certain point in their lives most men…”
I got the big V because I had two stepdaughters and they were enough for me. But I love being a father and, even better, Papa to my grandkids. Even though I didn’t end up biologically fathering children, I would never have put that irrevocable decision in the hands of adolescent me.
From where I sit, the slight drop in surety of traditional methods of birth control is more than made up by their lack of permanence.
How pricey is a snip anyways? Why not free whatever contraception? It’d save money.
It is humorous to see the left’s new found respect for states’ rights and limited government in this thread. And what’s with a non human having citizenship? What’s next fetal suffrage?
There are many, many variables. IMHO, the biggest disadvantage to a vasectomy is that it isn’t immediately effective; the couple must use a second form of birth control for at least 3 months, until he’s delivered a sperm cell-free semen sample. Plus, tubal ligation/removal (see footnote) is often done concurrently with a cesarean section, and while the procedure is more invasive, it’s effective IMMEDIATELY. I also read about a woman whose husband offered to have a vasectomy, but she went ahead and had the tubal because that vasectomy wouldn’t protect her if she was raped - something she had never experienced but it was a concern of hers. It was the right decision for them.
Footnote: I heard recently that many gynecologists are removing tubes, not tying them, because it doesn’t take much longer, and it’s believed that a lot of ovarian cancer actually originates in the tubes.
It’s like any other birth control decision: Each couple needs to do what is right for them.
I guess I’m thinking more along the lines of something that goes further than overruling Roe; e.g., declaring abortion itself to be unconstitutional and therefore illegal nationwide, which presumably is the dream scenario of anti-abortion fanatics. In that case I just think that a coalition of Blue States will refuse to abide by that decision and continue to allow legal abortion in those states; SCOTUS relies on voluntary compliance, after all.
People who advocate for widespread access to contraceptives generally mean reversible contraceptives, not sterilization (vasectomy or tubal ligation). Tubal reversal and vasectomy reversal are possible, but incredibly expensive and prone to fail. Also half of men who undergo vasectomy reversal find out they have developed anti-sperm antibodies; enough anti-bodies and the immune system no longer recognizes the sperm as self and seeks to actively destroy it.