BBC
In the US, some young men report that legal changes to reproductive rights have catalysed them to opt for vasectomies.
On a Friday in January, Lyon Lenk will go to his urologist’s office in Kansas City, Missouri, US. He’ll be given a local anaesthetic, and the doctor will cut a tiny incision in Lenk’s scrotum, locate his vas deferens – the tube that carries sperm through the penis – cut it, and seal the ends. The incision will be closed, and Lenk will go home, take some over-the-counter painkillers and as long as there are no complications, be free from discomfort within a week or so.
Lenk, 35, and his partner have no children, and want to keep it that way. When the United States Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization that there is no constitutional right to an abortion – overturning Roe v Wade, the decision that’s protected abortion rights since 1973 – he scheduled a vasectomy.
“I think like a lot of people in my situation, this is something that we were probably on the fence about before Roe v Wade got overturned,” says Lenk. “But this is the only option to keep my partner safe at this juncture, because I live in Missouri. And Missouri had one of the ‘trigger laws’ that went into effect, [criminalising abortion] right as it got overturned. It just got really scary and really real all at once.”
More young men are inquiring about and getting vasectomies. It’s a trend that’s been observed informally in several countries, and has particularly spiked in the United States since the Supreme Court’s decision. Google Trends tracked a huge uptick in US searches for ‘vasectomy’, along with the related search terms “Roe” and “abortion”; search volume was even higher in places with trigger laws. A report from telehealth research company Innerbody Research showed searches for “where can I get a vasectomy” increased by 850% in the days after the news, with the biggest jumps in conservative states Texas and Florida. One practice in Florida told CBS News that the number of child-free men getting vasectomies under the age of 30 had doubled since the ruling. Urologists in New York, California, Iowaand elsewhere have reported similar upticks.
It’s a norm-bucking trend. Responsibility for birth control, even for long-term couples, has long fallen disproportionately to women; female sterilisation, oral contraceptives, IUDs and other options for women remain the most common forms of birth control in the US. But with more Americans focusing on contraceptive decisions in the wake of the Dobbs ruling, the rise in interest around vasectomies may signal a shift towards men taking more responsibility for their own reproduction – or lack thereof.
‘Fear is a real factor’
In many countries, vaectomy has been a niche practice. Rates are especially low in developing nations, with average prevalence (usage by women aged 15 to 49 in relationships as a form of contraception) between 0% and 2%. It’s more common in other countries: UN figures from 2015 show that in Canada and the UK, prevalence stood at 21.7% and 21%, respectively. In the US, the UN figure was 10.8%…
