#vasectomies

[odinsblog]

Um, they’re reversible and yeah, wifey is funny af

[liskantope]

Recently a female Facebook friend made a post mentioning that she had been told in Tennessee that she couldn't go on birth control without her husband's consent. I originally remember some comment clarifying that the rationale for the law was that the decision to have or not have children affects the husband's happiness as well. (Even under that rationale, of course I find it gross.) Since this flies against my intuition and understanding of the legal state of women's rights, marital relations, etc., when I saw this post, I thought to myself that for the sake of intellectual honesty I should bring it up on Tumblr with some degree of contrition, since I've been criticized on here for underestimating the type and degree of reactionary social conservatism that still exists in our laws and in the views of politicians with real power.

But before doing so, I decided to look up whether Tennessee really has such a law, and Google flatly denied it (some info did pop up about minors' rights to birth control in Tennessee being in question until 2024, but that minors can obtain it today, albeit with parental permission).

Today I found that Facebook post again and saw a bunch of comments from other women, in Tennessee and several other states, who either were told they couldn't get birth control without their husbands signing off on it or were told the same thing about getting their tubes tied. Other women chimed in expressing shock, one of whom (apparently also in Tennessee?) mentioned that her doctors gave her no such enforcement. One male commenter attested to not being allowed to have a vasectomy without his wife/partner signing off on it as their (collective) decision; my friend who wrote the post believed him and responded sympathetically.

Obviously I don't think my friend, let alone all these other people, would be lying (at worst, they could be misinterpreting the description of the rule they were told, but to think that all those people are is a stretch), so what is going on here?

For the record, laws requiring that medical intervention in an individual's reproductive system be some kind of collective relationship choice, even if applying in a non-gendered way so not being ridiculously mid-20th-century sexist, are morally absurd (if anything, laws requiring consent of a partner to go off birth control make more moral sense although still seem quite questionable), but I suppose they're not entirely implausible.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Permanent contraception surged after Roe v Wade overturned, study finds

Young adults living in states likely to ban abortion obtained tubal sterilizations and vasectomies in months after ruling

Carter Sherman at The Guardian:

In the months after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, permanent contraception in the form of tubal sterilizations and vasectomies surged among young adults living in states likely to ban abortion, new research released on Monday found. Compared to May 2022, when the opinion overturning Roe leaked, August 2022 saw 95% more vasectomies and 70% more tubal sterilizations performed on people between the ages of 19 and 26, according to the study, which was conducted by researchers at the George Washington University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Michigan.

In addition to analyzing data about medical visits for permanent contraception before and after the opinion’s leak, the researchers also examined survey responses from more than 600 people between the ages of 14 and 24 who were asked about the fall of Roe. “It has made me want to be sterilized more,” said one 24-year-old female survey respondent from the US south. “The pill isn’t 100% effective and I’m afraid of losing access to it, and I do not want children in the future and would much rather be sterilized. I’m afraid of getting pregnant and not being able to make decisions for myself.”

Published in the journal Health Affairs, the study also found that, overall, tubal sterilizations – which surgically alter women’s fallopian tubes and are colloquially known as “getting tubes tied” – were more popular than vasectomies. There were about seven more tubal sterilizations performed per state a month in the second half of 2022, compared to roughly three more vasectomies a month per state. That popularity probably reflects the longstanding expectation that women shoulder the burden of contraception. But Julia Strasser, the study’s lead author, suspects that there may be other reasons, too.

A recent study published in Health Affairs reveals that the permanent contraception rate rose in the US in the aftermath of the Dobbs ruling.

[socialistfremenist]

[stabbyapologist]

There it is.

[powerfem]

REMEMBER VASECTOMIES AREN'T IMMEDIATELY EFFECTIVE (as opposed to tubal ligation). According to the planned parenthood website, it takes aproximately 3 MONTHS for semen (well more like seminal liquid at that point) to be free of spermatozoa. So you would have to keep using other methods of protection at least until more than 3 months have passed (I don't know exactly until when, ask your doctor). If it were me I would still used condoms even after that period of time if my partner got one and we lived in a place without access to abortion, 2 methods of protection are always better than one.

[kaiamar]

If a woman has a heartbeat you can’t tell her what to do with her goddamn body!

[unquietviolet]

Made this during a rant on my insta stories but I thought it might be worth sharing with the world