When it comes to planning a medical procedure involving a vulnerable area of the body, it’s easy to find reasons to delay. You need to take a vacation, there is discomfort and a recovery period. In the case of a vasectomy, the person (or couple) must also come to terms with their decision not to have children in the future.
The stereotypical patient is a middle-aged father who no longer wants to have more children, and whose wife may be happy about this opportunity to finally shoulder the burden of reproductive planning for their family.
Many vasectomy patients still fit this profile, but doctors are seeing more interest in the procedure from younger and childless people. (Note that vasectomies are usually reversible, but successful pregnancy after a reversal depends on many factors.)
Reasons for vasectomy vary and are currently changing.
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For some patients, the decision is made in haste. Robert*, now 70, told HuffPost: “In three years and three months, my wife had three C-sections, two due to failed contraception. It needed to be done.
Others feel less rushed and may hold back for a comfortable time. Matthew* told HuffPost that he chose to have the procedure on the Wednesday before the opening weekend of March Madness “because I knew I’d just have to lay around all weekend. Might as well have something to watch.”
David (who asked to be identified only by first name, like the men quoted in the rest of this article) had the procedure shortly after his wife gave birth to twins, bringing the total number of children to five. “It was a good time because the twins didn’t have to work as much because they weren’t even crawling yet, and the other three kids were at my grandparents for a couple of weeks so I could get some proper rest and recovery without overburdening my wife,” he told HuffPost.
Many men said they felt ready when their family was complete, like Tom, who said, “When my third child was 1 year old and healthy, I scheduled a vasectomy appointment.”
Age can be a convincing factor, as it was for Eric, who told HuffPost, “I wanted more kids because I only have one, but the idea of having kids until I was 60 didn’t seem like the right time. I’m 43 right now, so I decided to do it.”
The financial responsibility of having 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,” a man named Elton told HuffPost. “Calculating it seemed irresponsible to plan for more offspring when my ‘help them go to college and start independence’ time would have been at the same time as my ‘getting things in order for a reasonably independent retirement.’
Anthony explained that he had planned to have 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 demands of giving a child a decent life become overwhelming,” Anthony told HuffPost.
There’s also the simplicity of the procedure compared to the tied tubes of the female anatomy, as well as the feeling that there’s finally a chance for a man to “do his part” when it comes to family planning.
“A vasectomy is a much quicker and less invasive operation than anything else my wife could have done to achieve the same effect,” said Chris, who with his wife decided to complete their family with two children. “Cutting me out was a lot less invasive and a lot less recovery time than having her tubes tied or whatever. It 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 who want a vasectomy are fathers, and now many of them are 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 – 2022 in June decision by which the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and took away the constitutional right to abortion in the United States. Since that decision, the number of people planning a vasectomy has increased and their reasons have changed.
Dr. Kathleen Hwang, a urologist at Penn Medicine, has experienced this growing interest in vasectomy in her own practice. Around 2022 in the fall, she said, “consultation requests grew exponentially until I had to adjust my clinical practice to accommodate the increased volume.”
Hwang participated in a study on men’s reasons for seeking vasectomy. She and her colleagues surveyed more than 300 men who sought vasectomy after 2022. in June when the Dobbs decision was made.
Thirty percent of respondents cited “sociopolitical issues,” including 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 method of contraception is childless and younger (under 30) men,” Hwang told HuffPost.
In the survey, she said, “many patients reported that their decision to have a vasectomy was primarily to reduce the burden on their partners’ current contraceptive use and to protect them from ever having to consider abortion.”
Interestingly, the survey found that men who considered sociopolitical reasons for 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.
“Previously, it was thought that younger men or childless men would make more hasty decisions and regret sterilization, but our data show that they spend a lot of time considering vasectomy and are less likely to regret it,” Hwang said.
Thomas, 27, who recently had a vasectomy, exemplifies this cultural shift in motivation.
“I personally have never wanted to have children in my life and have wanted a vasectomy since I was at least 22 years old,” he told HuffPost. He was put off because he lacked health insurance, but also because he thought providers would question his judgment.
“I wasn’t very confident that the doctors would be willing to do the procedure because I don’t have children and I’m quite young,” he said.
in 2024 the election results increased his determination to pursue the procedure
“I’ve been pushed more and more recently by the admin shift. If prenatal health care becomes more and more difficult to access, someone who doesn’t want a child is naturally worried about being forced to have one. It’s in my own self-preservation, but it’s also in the interest of protecting women and women with wombs, because pregnancy is a two-way street,” he said.
When it comes to women’s feelings about men who have had a vasectomy, it seems that at least some may be relieved to find a partner who has had one. The man, named Jonas, told HuffPost that he had the procedure while still married, shortly after the birth of his third child. He divorced a few years later, and “when I started dating again, it was a plus for me.”
* Not his real name. This article originally appeared HuffPost.
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