When it comes to scheduling a medical procedure that involves a vulnerable area of the body, it’s not hard to find reasons to procrastinate. There is the need to take time off work, the discomfort and the recovery period that comes with it. In the case of a vasectomy, the person (or couple) also has to accept their decision not to have children in the future.
The stereotypical patient is a middle-aged father who does not want any more children and whose wife perhaps welcomes this opportunity for him to finally assume the burden of his family’s reproductive planning.
Many vasectomy patients still fit this profile, but doctors are seeing increased interest in the procedure from younger people and those who do not have children. (Note that vasectomies are usually reversible, but a successful pregnancy after a reversal depends on several factors.)
Motivations for vasectomies vary and are currently changing.
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For some patients, the decision is made with a sense of urgency. Robert*, now 70, told HuffPost: “My wife had three C-sections in three years and three months, two of them due to failed birth control. It needed to be done.”
Others feel less rushed and can wait until they find the most convenient time. Matthew* told HuffPost that he chose to have the procedure on the Wednesday before the first weekend of March Madness “because I knew I would have to be in bed all weekend. Maybe it had something to do with it.”
David (who asked to be identified only by his first name, like the men cited in the rest of this article), underwent the procedure shortly after his wife had twins, bringing their total number of children to five. “It was good timing because the twins didn’t require as much work because it was before they could crawl, and the other three kids were with the grandparents for a couple of weeks so I could rest and recover properly without straining my wife too much,” he told HuffPost.
Many men spoke of feeling ready once their families were complete, like Tom, who said, “When my third child was approaching one year old and healthy, I made the appointment for the vasectomy.”
Age can be a compelling factor, as it was for Eric, who told HuffPost, “I wanted to have more kids since I only have one, but the thought of having to raise them until I was 60 didn’t seem like a good time. I’m currently 43, so I went for it.”
Financial responsibility for a child was also a top concern for the men who spoke to HuffPost. “The last of my three children was born when I was 39 years old,” a man named Elton told HuffPost. “Doing the math, it seemed irresponsible to plan to have more children when that would have made my time of ‘helping them through college and launching into independence’ simultaneous with my time of ‘getting my affairs in order for a reasonably independent retirement.'”
Anthony explained that he scheduled a vasectomy in 2020, but as an elective procedure, it was postponed due to COVID-19. He “didn’t want any more children” and was worried about having the resources to support another child. “The financial and emotional requirements to give a child a decent life are becoming too much,” Anthony told HuffPost.
There is also the ease of the procedure compared to a person with female anatomy having their tubes tied, as well as the sense that here, finally, is an opportunity for a man to “do his part” when it comes to family planning.
“A vasectomy is a much quicker, lower-impact operation than anything my wife could have done to get the same effect,” said Chris, who along with his wife decided their family was complete with two children. “Having it cut was much less invasive and the recovery time was much less than having your tubes tied or anything else. It just made sense to us.”
David felt the same way: “Vasectomies are non-invasive and painless, so it was a no-brainer for me.”
Not all men seeking vasectomies are fathers, and many are now younger than you might expect.
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The cultural impetus for this change appears to be Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the June 2022 decision in which the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and eliminated the constitutional right to abortion in the United States. Since the ruling, there has been an increase in the number of people scheduling vasectomies, as well as a change in their reasons for doing so.
Dr. Kathleen Hwang, a urologist at Penn Medicine, has experienced this growing interest in vasectomy in her practice. Around fall 2022, he said, “the number of consultation requests increased exponentially to the point that I had to adjust my clinical practice to accommodate the increased volume.”
Hwang participated in a research study on men’s motives for seeking vasectomies. She and her colleagues surveyed more than 300 men who requested vasectomies after June 2022, the time of the Dobbs ruling.
Thirty percent of respondents identified “sociopolitical issues,” which included the Dobbs decision, as an “important” or even “most important” factor in their decision.
Patients who felt this way, Hwang explained, were often younger and single. They were also more likely to be childless. Patients without children were five times more likely to say that sociopolitical issues influenced their decision, Hwang said.
“The fastest growing population of men interested in this birth control method are men who do not have children and younger men (under 30 years old),” Hwang told HuffPost.
In the survey, he said, “many of the patients provided feedback that their decision to proceed with a vasectomy was largely to reduce the burden on their female partner of being on a current contraceptive or to protect them from the need to consider an abortion.”
Interestingly, the survey found that men who considered sociopolitical reasons for having a vasectomy spent a lot of time thinking about their decision: an average of four years, or about twice as long as those who reported no sociopolitical influence.
“In the past, it was thought that younger or childless men made more hasty decisions and would regret sterilization, but our data show that they spend a lot of time considering vasectomy and are unlikely to regret it,” Hwang said.
Thomas, a 27-year-old who recently underwent a vasectomy, exemplifies this cultural shift in motivations.
“Personally, I never wanted to have children in my life and I wanted to get a vasectomy since I was at least 22 years old,” she told HuffPost. He was delayed due to a lack of health insurance, but also because he thought providers would question his decision.
“I wasn’t really sure if any doctor would be willing to do the procedure on me, since I don’t have children and I’m quite young,” he said.
The results of the 2024 elections reinforced their decision to seek the procedure
“Recently I’ve been feeling more and more pressured to get one due to administrative change. If access to prenatal health care is becoming more difficult, someone who doesn’t want a child is naturally worried about being forced to have one. That’s in my own preservation, but also in the interest of protecting women and those with a uterus, since pregnancy is a two-way street,” she said.
As for women’s feelings about men undergoing vasectomies, it seems that at least some may feel relief in finding a partner who has undergone one. A man named Jon told HuffPost that he had the procedure done while he was married, shortly after the birth of his third child. She divorced several years later, she said, and “when I started dating again it was apparently a ‘bright spot’ for me.”
*Not his real name. This article originally appeared in HuffPost.
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