When it comes to scheduling a medical procedure involving 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 recuperation period involved. In the case of a vasectomy, a person (or a couple) also has to come to terms with making their decision not to have children in the future.
The stereotypical patient is a middle-aged father who doesn’t want to have any more kids and whose wife perhaps welcomes this opportunity for him to finally take on the burden of their family’s reproductive planning.
Lots of vasectomy patients still meet this profile, but doctors are seeing an increased interest in the procedure from people who are younger and who don’t have children. (Note that vasectomies are usually reversible, but a successful pregnancy following a reversal depends upon a number of factors.)
Motivations for vasectomies vary — and are currently shifting.
For some patients, the decision is made with a sense of urgency. Robert*, who is now in his 70s, told HuffPost, “My wife had three C-sections in three years and three months, two resulting from failed contraception. It needed to be done.”
Others feel less rush and may hold off for convenient timing. Matthew* told HuffPost that he chose to have the procedure done on the Wednesday before the opening weekend of March Madness “because I knew I’d have to just lay down all weekend. Might as well have something to watch.”
David (who asked to be identified by first name only, as did the men quoted in the rest of this article), had the procedure done not long after his wife had twins, bringing their total number of children to five. “It was good timing in that the twins didn’t take as much work because it was before they could even crawl, and the other three kids were with the grandparents for a couple of weeks so I could rest and recover properly without putting too much strain on my wife,” he told HuffPost.
Many men spoke of feeling ready once their families were complete, like Tom, who said, “When my third child approached 1 year old and was healthy, I scheduled the vasectomy appointment.”
Age can be a compelling factor, as it was for Eric, who told HuffPost: “I wanted more children since I only have one, but the idea of having to raise children into my 60s sounded like not a great time. I am currently 43, so I opted to have it done.”
The financial responsibility of a child was also a top concern for the men who spoke with HuffPost. “The last of my three kids was born when I was 39,” a man named Elton told HuffPost. “Doing the math, it seemed irresponsible to plan on any more offspring when that would have put my ‘help them with college and launch to independence’ time to be concurrent with my ‘get my affairs sorted for a reasonably independent retirement’ time.”
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 more children” and 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 in comparison 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.
“The vasectomy is a much quicker and lower-impact operation than anything my wife could have done for the same effect,” said Chris, whose decided with his wife that their family was complete with two children. “Me getting snipped was far less invasive and far lower recovery time than her having her tubes tied or anything else. It just made sense to us.”
David felt similarly: “Vasectomies are non-invasive and painless, so it was a no-brainer for me.”
Not all men who seek vasectomies are fathers, and more now are younger than you’d expect.
The cultural impetus for this shift appears to be Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the June 2022 decision with which the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and took away the constitutional right to abortion in the United States. Since the ruling, there has been an uptick 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 rising interest in vasectomy in her practice. Around the fall of 2022, she said, “the number of consult requests exponentially increased to where I needed to adjust my clinical practice to accommodate the increase in volume.”
Hwang was involved in a research study about men’s reasons for seeking vasectomies. She and her colleagues surveyed more than 300 men who sought vasectomies following 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 “the 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 child-free. 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 method of contraception are men who are childless and younger men (under 30 years old),” Hwang told HuffPost.
In the survey, she 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 from either being on a current contraceptive and or to protect them from needing to ever consider an abortion.”
Interestingly, the survey found that men who considered sociopolitical reasons for having a vasectomy spent significant time thinking about their decision — an average of four years, or about twice as long as those who did not report sociopolitical influence.
“In the past, younger men or childless men were thought to be making more hasty decisions and would have regret around sterilization, but our data demonstrates that they spend a significant time considering vasectomy and are unlikely to have regret,” Hwang said.
Thomas, a 27-year-old who recently had a vasectomy, exemplifies this cultural shift in motivations.
“I personally have never wanted to have children in my life and have wanted a vasectomy since I was at least 22,” he told HuffPost. He was delayed by a lack of health insurance but also because he thought providers would question his decision.
“I was not very confident that any doctors would willingly perform the procedure on me, since I don’t have kids and I am fairly young,” he said.
The 2024 election results increased his resolve to seek out the procedure
“I have become increasingly pressed to get one recently because of the admin shift. If prenatal health care is becoming increasingly difficult to access, someone who doesn’t want a kid is naturally concerned that they will be forced to have one. That’s in my own self-preservation but also in the interest of protecting women and those who have uteruses, since pregnancy is a two-way street,” he said.
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As for women’s feelings about men having vasectomies, it appears that at least some may feel relief to find a partner who has had one. A man named Jon told HuffPost he had the procedure done while he was married, shortly following the birth of his third child. He got divorced several years later, he said, and “when I started dating again it was apparently a ‘plus point’ for me.”
*Not his real name
This post was originally published on here
