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SCOTUS abortion ruling results in spike in requests in red states for vasectomies, tubal ligations [1]
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Date: 2022-07-01
Dr. Stein told the newspaper that before the Supreme Court decision, he received four or five vasectomy requests a day. Since the court’s decision was announced, that number has spiked to 12 to 18 requests per day. He said the number that’s still coming in “far exceeds what we have experienced in the past.” The Post reported:
“I’d say at least 60 or 70 percent are mentioning the Supreme Court decision,” Curington said. “And a few of them have such sophistication as young men that they actually are thinking about Justice Thomas and his opinion that contraception may fall next. And that’s shocking. That’s something that doesn’t enter into our conversations ever, until this week.”
Stein said his practice is booked through the end of August with vasectomy appointments, prompting him to open up more days in his schedule to accommodate patients who have recently registered. He and his associate, John Curington, said the decision overturning Roe has directly factored into their patients’ requests for vasectomies. Men under the age of 30 who do not have children are requesting vasectomies in greater numbers than before, the physicians said.
She did this even though abortion rights are still up in the air in Kansas. In August, the state will hold a referendum on a constitutional amendment that could eliminate abortion access. The Kansas Supreme Court has ruled that the state constitution protects a person’s right to an abortion. Hall decided to have the sterilization procedure done in North Carolina.
Tillie Hall, a 29-year-old from Kansas, told The Daily Beast that she set up a consultation to get a bilateral salpingectomy—where her doctor will remove both fallopian tubes—shortly after the draft of Justice Samuel Alito’s decision on overturning Roe was released in early May. Hall said she “was in shock” after seeing the draft opinion and felt it was very important to her “to be in charge of my reproductive help, and I knew I wanted to be childfree. The thought of a forced pregnancy is a nightmare to me, so getting a sterilization scheduled was imperative,” Hall said.
The Daily Beast reported that scores of people have begun the process of seeking what can result in permanent sterilization—through the procedure of tubal ligation, in which both fallopian tubes are blocked, cut, or tied. It is a much more invasive procedure than a vasectomy and has a lower percentage of being reversed.
But women and those who can get pregnant are facing the worst risks including the likelihood of increased maternal mortality, particularly if doctors are reluctant to treat miscarriages. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists expressed concern that the practice of medicine will be reshaped or even contradicted “by laws not founded in science or based on evidence.”
Urologist Marc Goldstein, director of the Center for Male Reproductive Medicine and Microsurgery at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York, told The Washington Post that vasectomy requests also spiked after the Great Recession of 2008 as more men began to worry about the financial stress of having additional children and when the coronavirus pandemic began in 2020 and people had to work from home. He anticipates “increasing requests” as a result of the Supreme Court ruling.
The vasectomy procedure involves cutting or blocking off the vas deferens—the tubes that carry sperm from testicles to the urethra. The procedure can be done using a local anesthesia and in one procedure without using a scalpel. A procedure to reverse a vasectomy is a much more complicated and costly surgical procedure.
In Texas, the existing six-week cut-off for abortion already in existence before the SCOTUS ruling wasn’t harsh enough. The Lonestar state is planning to introduce a near-total abortion ban to take effect in about a month, identifying life as beginning at fertilization.
Dr. Nancy Binford, an OB-GYN in Austin, Texas, told The Daily Beast that since last Friday, she had received three requests from people in their 20s asking for tubal ligations. She said that over the last 20 years that she has been in practice she normally receives about one request a year for the sterilization procedure from a person in that age group.
“These are women who never wanted to have children and because of the state of the world, they want to get their tubes tied,” Binford said. “It’s chilling to think that what the SCOTUS ruling is doing is pushing women toward sterilization.”
The Daily Beast added:
Binford insisted that she will not be performing a tubal ligation for a 20-year-old “requesting it out of fear right now,” because they may regret it later. That said, she is “putting in IUDs left and right.” “The world is burning right now, and looks like The Handmaid’s Tale,” she added. “And I think even seeing these requests for tubal ligations from women so young proves how scared they are about their freedom.”
But another Austin OB-GYN, Dr. Tyler Handcock, told The Daily Beast on Tuesday that his clinic, the Women’s Health Domain, had received over 130 new patient requests in the first four days since the Supreme Court ruling from people seeking permanent sterilization. He said the normal number of consultations for tubal ligations previously at the facility was about one or two per week. The following message was posted on the Women’s Health Domain website:
Due to changes in law & women's rights, we want you to know we are your advocate, we hear you, we see you & we are right here with you. Our requests for appointments and sterilization services/procedures has increased by nearly 1000% since June 24th. We will get in touch with you to schedule an appointment, if you contact us .... Please be patient as we work to accommodate all as fast as we can.
In Kentucky, where a “trigger law” went into effect after the SCOTUS ruling that bans abortion except as a life-saving measure for the pregnant person, a Louisville OB-GYN, who spoke to The Daily Beast on condition of anonymity, said that her office had received more than 50 requests for tubal ligation consultations since Friday. Reproductive health advocates have cautioned that people should seek the procedure only if they have a firm desire never to have children—and not as a reaction to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe. Dr. Franziska Hasselhof, an Ohio OB-GYN who has been posting a series of TikTok videos advising people of their health care rights, cautioned that abortion bans and a desire for a tubal ligation should be “two separate discussions”—and that patients should not rush to get the permanent procedure just because they might lose their right to choose in any given state. She told The Daily Beast: “Both are very important components of health care. Full sterilization is not supposed to negate the need for abortion. Of course, I am devastated by the decision that has been made in the Supreme Court last week, but patients shouldn’t be seeking to get their tubes tied as a reaction to not getting [or being able to get] an abortion.” Here are some of the reports from red states: IOWA
Esgar Guarin, a urologist who specializes in vasectomies, told The Washington Post that he has seen a “200 to 250%” increase in traffic on his website offering information about vasectomies. TEXAS
Vasectomy specialist Dr. Luke Machen of Austin Fertility and Reproductive Medicine, said the clinic received over 150 vasectomy appointment requests combined on Friday and Monday following the SCOTUS ruling. Typically, the clinic performs 45 to 50 vasectomies per month, the Austonia news website reported. Similar spikes were reported at other local clinics such as the Austin Urology Institute.
Austin Nicholson said he got a vasectomy in September 2021 shortly after Texas introduced its vigilante law banning abortions after about six weeks. “A big part of it was the political climate. We could both potentially face consequences and she would definitely face more consequences, which I also personally would not want,” Nicholson said. “I didn't want to be stuck in Texas and have a potential abortion on the mind when it's illegal.”
Nicholson said that since the Supreme Court ruling three of his friends had told him they were considering the procedure.
TENNESSEE
Nashville urologist Dr. Joseph Pazona said he’s been receiving an influx of calls inquiring about vasectomies because of Tennessee’s abortion ban. Before the SCOTUS ruling, he was performing 50 to 60 vasectomies a month, but told Nashville’s News Channel 5 that he’s prepared to double the number he performs due to the ban.
Thirty-six-year-old Joseph Carrizales said he’s looking into getting a vasectomy because he doesn’t want any more kids. "I had my son at a pretty young age, and so I had to grow up pretty quickly. And I want to have some, call it 'me-time' I guess, in the near future, and have the ability to do that,” Carrizales said. “While I enjoy my son—I love kids very much—I want to be able to have some of that time myself."
KANSAS/MISSOURI
In Kansas City, Missouri, Dr. Christian Hettinger. a urologist at Kansas City Urology Care, where there are about two dozen clinics across the Kansas City area, said that since last Friday “we’re up 900% in people looking to get a vasectomy.” He told KSHB 41 News that the demand for vasectomy consults is drastically increasing across both Missouri and Kansas.
Lyon Lenk, 35, told the TV station that he is considering getting a vasectomy because of his fiancee’s medical condition and the risk to her that could result from a pregnancy due to the state’s abortion ban. “We got engaged at the beginning of the pandemic, because there’s just no one else I want to do this life thing with,” he said. “Kelsey is everything to me, I’ve never met a kinder, beautiful person.”
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/1/2107488/-SCOTUS-abortion-ruling-results-in-spike-in-requests-in-red-states-for-vasectomies-tubal-ligations
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