8 ms·

Vasectomies rose after the end of Roe

82 points by lxm 3y ago

Cerium 3y ago
https://archive.is/MVMYN https://archive.is/MVMYN
coldpie 3y ago
If you've been on the fence about getting this done, I highly recommend it! It's a quick procedure, you're in & out in less than an hour. Mine was so uneventful I actually took the bus back home. Back at work the next day. Slightly sore for about two weeks, then totally back to normal. Aside from the other obvious benefits, just the peace of mind is great.
- Clubber 3y ago
  Are they able to make it reversible, similar to lap-band surgery, where they just pinch the tube, so to speak?
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Reversibility goes down over time, and can cost $5k-$10k. You can put semen on ice with a cryostorage company for ~$1200, covering collection and some initial storage time, with cost of ongoing storage on a cadence. I recommend Reprotech, but there are several reputable providers in this space. Cheap insurance if your life changes and you change your mind.
    - Dig1t 3y ago
      Does the $1200 cover storage for a lifetime? Do you have to renew yearly or something?
      - toomuchtodo 3y ago
        About $350/year, but the cost per year goes down if prepaid. https://www.reprotech.com/fee-schedule/ https://www.reprotech.com/fee-schedule/
  - coldpie 3y ago
    Talk to your doctor, but my opinion is, if you think you may want to reverse it in the future, then just don't do it.
- farseer 3y ago
  So uneventful yet you define your online persona with it. I don't think self mutilation should be taken so lightly.
  - sho_hn 3y ago
    To be fair, voluntarily surrendering the ability to procreate seems life-altering and identity-shaping enough to qualify. Not something you'd do on a whim, no? Seems worth talking about.
  - coldpie 3y ago
    My 11 years on this site has all been leading up to this very moment!!
  - ska 3y ago
    > yet you define your online persona with it how do you figure?
  - dang 3y ago
    Please don't cross into personal attack. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - ryanklee 3y ago
    I feel the same way about haircuts!
- RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm 3y ago
  Whenever I again consider getting one and start reading up opinions on the Internet, it is usually a mix of a lot of people who say they're absolutely OK now ... and then I run into someone who says it COMPLETELY destroyed their life and they're in pain all day every day. Some even say they've been fine for quite a bit of time and then suddenly the pain starts. Which in total makes me absolutely NOT want a vasectomy even though I have zero desire to reproduce. Because it does feel plausible that it can cause trouble to lock something up in the body which is meant to be released once in a while. I hope some day men too will have real and reliable (condoms fail a lot) self-determination in terms of reproduction, not only "suffer abstinence your whole life or risk getting financially gutted for decades."
  - jimbob45 3y ago
    I hope some day men too will have real and reliable (condoms fail a lot) self-determination in terms of reproduction Period tracking is incredibly reliable. People will tell you that women will lie about when they have their periods. However, if you can't trust a woman to tell you when she's menstruating, then that's perhaps a sign that you're not ready for sexual conduct with that woman.
    - RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm 3y ago
      Uhm, what, reliable? Source? The failure rate of that is in the double digits percentage AFAIK !? Besides, as long as you are still fertile and relying upon someone else not being fertile that is not self-determination. Men can also be victims of violence. And as soon as multiple $100k in potential alimony payment (raising a kid for 18 years costs that much!) get involved some (not all!) people will lie to your face as much as humanly possible.
    - cassepipe 3y ago
      Indeed, we use condoms for the danger days. We have a window of four days before and after supposed ovulation. I wonder if this is enough. Do you use any other kind of tracking like temperature monitoring ? I'd love to read any resources. I know this isn't the best contraception but I live in a country where I have access to abortion and "tomorrow" pills.
- throwaway3932 3y ago
  Throwaway here. My vasectomy was quick and uncomplicated, but left me in constant testicular pain. Sex also became far less pleasurable. After a year and a half of no improvement, I had a reversal; this greatly improved my symptoms but I am still not as I was before. PVPS is known to be real, but there are very few studies on it. Nobody really knows the incidence, there is no way to predict who will get it, and all of the treatment options suck. Reversal is the best, but is very expensive and often doesn't work. The reversal cost me ~$14k out of pocket. It's often not covered by insurance because it is considered elective. I wish I had more to offer than an anecdote. There's some forums out there of people who got it much worse than me.
  - StrangeATractor 3y ago
    Just out of curiosity, how active were you during recovery?
    - throwaway3932 3y ago
      Not active. Per the doctor's instructions I avoided both strenuous physical and all sexual activity for ~12 days. A footnote I forgot to add: the pain was only in my left testicle, while the right felt fine. This underlines the unpredictability of PVPS.
  - BigRedDog1669 3y ago
    I was thinking about having it done. The doctor who was going to do it said that some people have pain afterwards. I asked him and he couldn't give me any stats or details on how many people or how long it lasts, etc. That made me think twice and after looking up people's stories online I decided not to do it. It seems surprisingly little studied. If it was temporary, I could deal with it, but a small yet significant chance of constant pain isn't worth it.
- HDMI_Cable 3y ago
  I've always wanted to get one done, but I've heard that doctors can just say no, and not let you get one. For reference, I know that I would want any of my children to be born through IVF (for genetic screening reasons), and since you can always have sperm frozen, might as well just reduce risk and get a vasectomy after having them frozen. But the only reason why I haven't yet is because I'm fairly young, and doctors don't like young people getting vasectomies for some reason.
  - coldpie 3y ago
    I think this will be highly regional & medical system dependent. FWIW I got mine when I was 28 here in Minnesota, before I was married. Doctor just asked how certain I was, I said 9 or 10 out of 10, and he booked me for surgery. That was it. This was at a university-associated urology clinic.
  - BrandoElFollito 3y ago
    In France there is a compulsory 4 months delay between the moment you ask for it and the day it is done. It is a standard procedure reimbursed by social security.
- pengaru 3y ago
  > Aside from the other obvious benefits, just the peace of mind is great. To say this without even paying lip-service to the well-known and common negative side effects strikes me as incredibly disingenuous. The few guys I've known well enough over the years to discuss such matters who had lived with vasectomies long enough all complained of testicular pain, granulomas forming, etc. One would so consistently walk bull-legged from the pain into our shared office I basically knew whenever he got stoned with his wife the previous weekend. He wasted numerous days on doctor visits to get it checked out and see if he had developed testicular cancer, since granulomas are easily conflated with tumors, especially when the area's too tender/painful to really probe yourself. Living with a vasectomy is not all sunshine and roses. And I say this as someone who feels strongly about the planet being overrun by far too many homo sapiens.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > The few guys I've known well enough over the years to discuss such matters who had lived with vasectomies long enough all complained of testicular pain, granulomas forming, etc. And of the several guys I know who had lived with vasectomies for a long time, none of them experienced any sort of long-term discomfort at all. We have dueling anecdata here. I have not seen any information, in data or anecdotes, that would make me even a little nervous about getting a vasectomy. However, there is risk with literally all surgical procedures, no matter how minor. Different people have different risk tolerances, and I am not diminishing your own personal risk assessment.
    - pengaru 3y ago
      > We have dueling anecdata here. I have not seen any information, in data or anecdotes, that would make me even a little nervous about getting a vasectomy. You're right, it's not like what my anecdata describes is common/confirmed by the data enough to have a medical term describing it with its own wikipedia page or anything... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-vasectomy_pain_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-vasectomy_pain_syndrome
      - 3y ago
endtime 3y ago
There are about 260 work days per year. Assuming 3 weeks' vacation per year, so 245 days per year, 50,000 vasectomies in 40 years is 5.1 vasectomies per day - approximately one every 94 working minutes for an entire career.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  The procedure itself takes like 15 minutes, so that seems pretty reasonable.
IndigoIncognito 3y ago
I wonder what percent of traffic going to paywalled newsites are just paywall blockers
omginternets 3y ago
Paywall
anonporridge 3y ago
I've seen conservatives gloat about this as a huge win. They see it as liberal men voluntarily limiting their future contribution to the gene pool, and thereby reducing competition for their own offspring to thrive and take control of the future.
- Alupis 3y ago
  That's a bizarre take. The conservatives even commenting on this phenomenon mostly champion personal responsibility. ie. they would prefer you act responsibly before you require an abortion.
  - anonporridge 3y ago
    It's both. They like that people are taking more personal responsibility to avoid getting pregnant in the first place, and therefore not committing what they believe to be murder in the form of abortion. They also like that liberal minded people who consider abortion an option for an unwanted pregnancy are now increasing their rates of voluntary sterilization, thereby decreasing their future contribution to the gene pool.
    - Alupis 3y ago
      > future contribution to the gene pool This could be some side-effect, but your political ideology is not genetic and therefore self-sterilization has zero impact on the country's future political makeup. Anyone making that argument fundamentally does not understand genetics and child raising. Even within families, children will often hold wildly different political views from each other, let alone their parents. In conservative circles, it's become a sort of meme. People running out and deciding to become responsible after the "safety net" was removed in some select areas. It should be noted that repealing of Roe had zero impact on significant portions of this country - making the meme even more funny within conservative circles. From some conservative's perspective, sure, no abortion is permissible. But that is a hard-liner's perspective, and just like the Democrat party has shifted enormously over the past few decades, so is the Republican party. There are fewer and fewer hard-liners, and more and more folks that just think abortion is supposed to be a last resort - not the first resort. To that end, this was a clear win for that perspective. I think more of us can agree on this perspective than we would think...
noisycarlos 3y ago
Hey, I just made my appointment for this!
- nkingsy 3y ago
  I'm going in Friday! My wife likes and is staying on birth control, but 2 kids is plenty. I'm doing it for me.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
troupe 3y ago
The surgeon said one of the reasons men were getting the procedure was because: > Others, who had been considering the procedure for a while, were apparently spurred by a concern that vasectomy could be outlawed next. Is this a common concern? The only things I've seen discussed regarding vasectomies in politics in the last few years have had to do with REQUIRING vasectomies in various situations...the exact opposite of what this surgeon says his clients are worried about.
- sho_hn 3y ago
  Taking male freedoms away? Historically unlikely.
  - zajio1am 3y ago
    Military draft is one of most drastic freedom infringement and is almost always limited to males.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - failingslowly 3y ago
    Men have no say over whether a baby is aborted or not, even if they are the father and will be responsible for child support: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22457999/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22457999/
- tivert 3y ago
  >> Others, who had been considering the procedure for a while, were apparently spurred by a concern that vasectomy could be outlawed next. > Is this a common concern? Perhaps in some quarters. In our polarized times, cultivating fear is an easy and effective way to motivate "your side," and the use of fear is not limited to any particular faction. The country is full of people who have pretty irrational and unrealistic and exaggerated fears of what will happen if the "other side" wins. And the evidence is right there in the quote "Dr Doug Stein" appears to be from Florida. Abortion isn't banned there, it's just recently been severely restricted very recently. If his patents are coming into his clinic incorrectly thinking abortion is currently banned (implied by "outlawed next"), I doubt those people are going to be able to make reasonable predictions about what will happen politically in the future.
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
Did the entire conservative thread get deleted?
mpsprd 3y ago
It's interesting how vasectomy is normalized or shunned depending on culture. In France, its taboo and doctors take this very seriously, they will try to protect the patient "against themselves"[0]. In Quebec, its extremely normalized and common. Most family men do it in their late thirties/early forties. [0] https://www.lapresse.ca/vivre/sexualite/201410/10/01-4808204-vasectomie-couper-le-canal-famille.php https://www.lapresse.ca/vivre/sexualite/201410/10/01-4808204... (in french)
kgwxd 3y ago
Paywalled so I'm not sure if it's covered but I'm curious what the demographic of the new patients are and if there was any changes in "ethics" to determine "qualifying" patients at that office. It had nothing to do with Roe but I had one this year. I'm over 40, have 2 kids and, while my wife wasn't required to sign off on it, they did ask about it several times. Meanwhile my brother-in-law, late 30's, neither him or his wife (even later 30's) ever want kids, can't find a reliable doctor to perform one in this are (not FL).
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
Isn't this more obvious? These are guys that don't want to 'accidently' get someone pregnant, since now there are fewer options for dealing with the 'problem'.
cassepipe 3y ago
I was rooting for Vasalgel very much but it was supposed to be commercialized in 2017... The Parsemus Fundation recently sold the tech to : https://nextlifesciences.org/ https://nextlifesciences.org/ Hope it works out some day
- Ancapistani 3y ago
  That's unfortunate. I've been on their mailing list since I was in my early twenties - I was married, and while I didn't particularly want more children, I would have been willing to accept the risk as part of a study to help the technology progress. I would have even been willing to participate in a double-blind, placebo-controlled study on its effectiveness, knowing that there would be a ~50% chance that I was just having completely unprotected sex. Now I'll be 40 in a few months and it appears it's no closer to market than it was when I was 20.
ridgered4 3y ago
My vasectomy left me with life long pain and discomfort, particularly when sitting. This is after a long period of (essentially) torture that had me seriously considering how to commit suicide. The only treatment offered involves cutting holes in my abdomen to draw out and skeletonize the stalks connecting my testicles hopefully killing all nerves. It probably won't cause the testicle to die although there is a small chance the blood supply will fail. Just like there was a small chance of lightning bolts of pain shooting through to my back, warmth spreads and pins and needles down my legs and pain in my hips and lower abdomen so there was no need to impress these possibility onto me. Just the casual mention of the possibility of pain, which I figured would be occasional aching of the testicles. It remains the worst decision I've made in my entire life.
- ryanklee 3y ago
  Sorry for your condition, but I think it'd be a big mistake for anyone to listen to your experience and make any decisions based on it. Looks like something like 1-2% rate of hematoma and the same for PVPS when performed by experienced physicians.[0] Edit: These are rates for minor complications. The incident rate for major ones requiring post-procedure interventions is 0.1%. [0]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8255399/#sec-3title https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8255399/#sec-3t...
  - RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm 3y ago
    Remember when COVID hit and some people were saying "1% chance of death isn't much" and then they had to be informed that 1% is very high and we're in serious trouble? Why is 1% low when we're talking about lifelong pain?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - colpabar 3y ago
      Easy, because the commenter making that argument is a proponent of men getting vasectomies, and they are choosing to interpret the statistics in a way that is favorable to their position. Just like what the people you are describing were doing with covid stats. Just like what people do with statistics on gun crimes or school shootings. To me it seems like whenever statistics get posted on HN the discussion is bound to devolve into pointless arguments. Statistics are crucial and necessary and we have to have hard data to support everything when said hard data supports MY positions, but when it supports YOURS it's obviously biased and incomplete and inaccurate and useless. And I guess I should point out that I am in no way saying statistics shouldn't be used when making decisions. It's just that whenever I see them posted here, it means I'm not going to learn anything from that particular comment thread and it's time to move on to the next one.
kgwxd 3y ago
> Overturning Roe v Wade has been a brutal blow for women’s rights in America. The rise in vasectomies may be one very small consolation. What a terrible way to end the article. Especially when it has the subtitle "Brothers are doing it for themselves." It's not a consolation of any amount and calling them "solidarity snips" is the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard. No one gave that reason with a straight face. There's no author credited on the page, I wonder why.
- tivert 3y ago
  > No one gave that reason with a straight face. There's no author credited on the page, I wonder why. IIRC, it's the Economist's house style. So, if you read that magazine, you may be taking some green 20-something's pronouncements as more authoritative than they should be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist#Editorial_anonymity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist#Editorial_anonym...
aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 3y ago
I got my vasectomy earlier this year specifically because of the Dobbs decision. My wife and I agreed that a total ban on abortion (and potentially restricted access to birth control) is no longer out of the question.
securingsincity 3y ago
I had one done earlier this year. The doctor told me he was pretty much booked non stop since the time of that decision. I had jokingly said I missed the peak season of march madness. He said that in the past it was the peak season but times had seriously changed in the last year. He didn't bring it up specifically but he said he had around 5-7 consults a day since June of 2022, with a couple surgeries a day.

82 points by lxm 3y ago

https://archive.is/MVMYN https://archive.is/MVMYN

If you've been on the fence about getting this done, I highly recommend it! It's a quick procedure, you're in & out in less than an hour. Mine was so uneventful I actually took the bus back home. Back at work the next day. Slightly sore for about two weeks, then totally back to normal. Aside from the other obvious benefits, just the peace of mind is great.

Clubber 3y ago
Are they able to make it reversible, similar to lap-band surgery, where they just pinch the tube, so to speak?
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Reversibility goes down over time, and can cost $5k-$10k. You can put semen on ice with a cryostorage company for ~$1200, covering collection and some initial storage time, with cost of ongoing storage on a cadence. I recommend Reprotech, but there are several reputable providers in this space. Cheap insurance if your life changes and you change your mind.
  - Dig1t 3y ago
    Does the $1200 cover storage for a lifetime? Do you have to renew yearly or something?
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      About $350/year, but the cost per year goes down if prepaid. https://www.reprotech.com/fee-schedule/ https://www.reprotech.com/fee-schedule/
- coldpie 3y ago
  Talk to your doctor, but my opinion is, if you think you may want to reverse it in the future, then just don't do it.
farseer 3y ago
So uneventful yet you define your online persona with it. I don't think self mutilation should be taken so lightly.
- sho_hn 3y ago
  To be fair, voluntarily surrendering the ability to procreate seems life-altering and identity-shaping enough to qualify. Not something you'd do on a whim, no? Seems worth talking about.
- coldpie 3y ago
  My 11 years on this site has all been leading up to this very moment!!
- ska 3y ago
  > yet you define your online persona with it how do you figure?
- dang 3y ago
  Please don't cross into personal attack. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ryanklee 3y ago
  I feel the same way about haircuts!
RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm 3y ago
Whenever I again consider getting one and start reading up opinions on the Internet, it is usually a mix of a lot of people who say they're absolutely OK now ... and then I run into someone who says it COMPLETELY destroyed their life and they're in pain all day every day. Some even say they've been fine for quite a bit of time and then suddenly the pain starts. Which in total makes me absolutely NOT want a vasectomy even though I have zero desire to reproduce. Because it does feel plausible that it can cause trouble to lock something up in the body which is meant to be released once in a while. I hope some day men too will have real and reliable (condoms fail a lot) self-determination in terms of reproduction, not only "suffer abstinence your whole life or risk getting financially gutted for decades."
- jimbob45 3y ago
  I hope some day men too will have real and reliable (condoms fail a lot) self-determination in terms of reproduction Period tracking is incredibly reliable. People will tell you that women will lie about when they have their periods. However, if you can't trust a woman to tell you when she's menstruating, then that's perhaps a sign that you're not ready for sexual conduct with that woman.
  - RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm 3y ago
    Uhm, what, reliable? Source? The failure rate of that is in the double digits percentage AFAIK !? Besides, as long as you are still fertile and relying upon someone else not being fertile that is not self-determination. Men can also be victims of violence. And as soon as multiple $100k in potential alimony payment (raising a kid for 18 years costs that much!) get involved some (not all!) people will lie to your face as much as humanly possible.
  - cassepipe 3y ago
    Indeed, we use condoms for the danger days. We have a window of four days before and after supposed ovulation. I wonder if this is enough. Do you use any other kind of tracking like temperature monitoring ? I'd love to read any resources. I know this isn't the best contraception but I live in a country where I have access to abortion and "tomorrow" pills.
throwaway3932 3y ago
Throwaway here. My vasectomy was quick and uncomplicated, but left me in constant testicular pain. Sex also became far less pleasurable. After a year and a half of no improvement, I had a reversal; this greatly improved my symptoms but I am still not as I was before. PVPS is known to be real, but there are very few studies on it. Nobody really knows the incidence, there is no way to predict who will get it, and all of the treatment options suck. Reversal is the best, but is very expensive and often doesn't work. The reversal cost me ~$14k out of pocket. It's often not covered by insurance because it is considered elective. I wish I had more to offer than an anecdote. There's some forums out there of people who got it much worse than me.
- StrangeATractor 3y ago
  Just out of curiosity, how active were you during recovery?
  - throwaway3932 3y ago
    Not active. Per the doctor's instructions I avoided both strenuous physical and all sexual activity for ~12 days. A footnote I forgot to add: the pain was only in my left testicle, while the right felt fine. This underlines the unpredictability of PVPS.
- BigRedDog1669 3y ago
  I was thinking about having it done. The doctor who was going to do it said that some people have pain afterwards. I asked him and he couldn't give me any stats or details on how many people or how long it lasts, etc. That made me think twice and after looking up people's stories online I decided not to do it. It seems surprisingly little studied. If it was temporary, I could deal with it, but a small yet significant chance of constant pain isn't worth it.
HDMI_Cable 3y ago
I've always wanted to get one done, but I've heard that doctors can just say no, and not let you get one. For reference, I know that I would want any of my children to be born through IVF (for genetic screening reasons), and since you can always have sperm frozen, might as well just reduce risk and get a vasectomy after having them frozen. But the only reason why I haven't yet is because I'm fairly young, and doctors don't like young people getting vasectomies for some reason.
- coldpie 3y ago
  I think this will be highly regional & medical system dependent. FWIW I got mine when I was 28 here in Minnesota, before I was married. Doctor just asked how certain I was, I said 9 or 10 out of 10, and he booked me for surgery. That was it. This was at a university-associated urology clinic.
- BrandoElFollito 3y ago
  In France there is a compulsory 4 months delay between the moment you ask for it and the day it is done. It is a standard procedure reimbursed by social security.
pengaru 3y ago
> Aside from the other obvious benefits, just the peace of mind is great. To say this without even paying lip-service to the well-known and common negative side effects strikes me as incredibly disingenuous. The few guys I've known well enough over the years to discuss such matters who had lived with vasectomies long enough all complained of testicular pain, granulomas forming, etc. One would so consistently walk bull-legged from the pain into our shared office I basically knew whenever he got stoned with his wife the previous weekend. He wasted numerous days on doctor visits to get it checked out and see if he had developed testicular cancer, since granulomas are easily conflated with tumors, especially when the area's too tender/painful to really probe yourself. Living with a vasectomy is not all sunshine and roses. And I say this as someone who feels strongly about the planet being overrun by far too many homo sapiens.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > The few guys I've known well enough over the years to discuss such matters who had lived with vasectomies long enough all complained of testicular pain, granulomas forming, etc. And of the several guys I know who had lived with vasectomies for a long time, none of them experienced any sort of long-term discomfort at all. We have dueling anecdata here. I have not seen any information, in data or anecdotes, that would make me even a little nervous about getting a vasectomy. However, there is risk with literally all surgical procedures, no matter how minor. Different people have different risk tolerances, and I am not diminishing your own personal risk assessment.
  - pengaru 3y ago
    > We have dueling anecdata here. I have not seen any information, in data or anecdotes, that would make me even a little nervous about getting a vasectomy. You're right, it's not like what my anecdata describes is common/confirmed by the data enough to have a medical term describing it with its own wikipedia page or anything... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-vasectomy_pain_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-vasectomy_pain_syndrome
    - 3y ago

endtime 3y ago

There are about 260 work days per year. Assuming 3 weeks' vacation per year, so 245 days per year, 50,000 vasectomies in 40 years is 5.1 vasectomies per day - approximately one every 94 working minutes for an entire career.

ceejayoz 3y ago
The procedure itself takes like 15 minutes, so that seems pretty reasonable.

IndigoIncognito 3y ago

I wonder what percent of traffic going to paywalled newsites are just paywall blockers

omginternets 3y ago

Paywall

anonporridge 3y ago

I've seen conservatives gloat about this as a huge win. They see it as liberal men voluntarily limiting their future contribution to the gene pool, and thereby reducing competition for their own offspring to thrive and take control of the future.

Alupis 3y ago
That's a bizarre take. The conservatives even commenting on this phenomenon mostly champion personal responsibility. ie. they would prefer you act responsibly before you require an abortion.
- anonporridge 3y ago
  It's both. They like that people are taking more personal responsibility to avoid getting pregnant in the first place, and therefore not committing what they believe to be murder in the form of abortion. They also like that liberal minded people who consider abortion an option for an unwanted pregnancy are now increasing their rates of voluntary sterilization, thereby decreasing their future contribution to the gene pool.
  - Alupis 3y ago
    > future contribution to the gene pool This could be some side-effect, but your political ideology is not genetic and therefore self-sterilization has zero impact on the country's future political makeup. Anyone making that argument fundamentally does not understand genetics and child raising. Even within families, children will often hold wildly different political views from each other, let alone their parents. In conservative circles, it's become a sort of meme. People running out and deciding to become responsible after the "safety net" was removed in some select areas. It should be noted that repealing of Roe had zero impact on significant portions of this country - making the meme even more funny within conservative circles. From some conservative's perspective, sure, no abortion is permissible. But that is a hard-liner's perspective, and just like the Democrat party has shifted enormously over the past few decades, so is the Republican party. There are fewer and fewer hard-liners, and more and more folks that just think abortion is supposed to be a last resort - not the first resort. To that end, this was a clear win for that perspective. I think more of us can agree on this perspective than we would think...

noisycarlos 3y ago

Hey, I just made my appointment for this!

nkingsy 3y ago
I'm going in Friday! My wife likes and is staying on birth control, but 2 kids is plenty. I'm doing it for me.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

troupe 3y ago

The surgeon said one of the reasons men were getting the procedure was because: > Others, who had been considering the procedure for a while, were apparently spurred by a concern that vasectomy could be outlawed next. Is this a common concern? The only things I've seen discussed regarding vasectomies in politics in the last few years have had to do with REQUIRING vasectomies in various situations...the exact opposite of what this surgeon says his clients are worried about.

sho_hn 3y ago
Taking male freedoms away? Historically unlikely.
- zajio1am 3y ago
  Military draft is one of most drastic freedom infringement and is almost always limited to males.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- failingslowly 3y ago
  Men have no say over whether a baby is aborted or not, even if they are the father and will be responsible for child support: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22457999/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22457999/
tivert 3y ago
>> Others, who had been considering the procedure for a while, were apparently spurred by a concern that vasectomy could be outlawed next. > Is this a common concern? Perhaps in some quarters. In our polarized times, cultivating fear is an easy and effective way to motivate "your side," and the use of fear is not limited to any particular faction. The country is full of people who have pretty irrational and unrealistic and exaggerated fears of what will happen if the "other side" wins. And the evidence is right there in the quote "Dr Doug Stein" appears to be from Florida. Abortion isn't banned there, it's just recently been severely restricted very recently. If his patents are coming into his clinic incorrectly thinking abortion is currently banned (implied by "outlawed next"), I doubt those people are going to be able to make reasonable predictions about what will happen politically in the future.

FrustratedMonky 3y ago

Did the entire conservative thread get deleted?

mpsprd 3y ago

It's interesting how vasectomy is normalized or shunned depending on culture. In France, its taboo and doctors take this very seriously, they will try to protect the patient "against themselves"[0]. In Quebec, its extremely normalized and common. Most family men do it in their late thirties/early forties. [0] https://www.lapresse.ca/vivre/sexualite/201410/10/01-4808204-vasectomie-couper-le-canal-famille.php https://www.lapresse.ca/vivre/sexualite/201410/10/01-4808204... (in french)

kgwxd 3y ago

Paywalled so I'm not sure if it's covered but I'm curious what the demographic of the new patients are and if there was any changes in "ethics" to determine "qualifying" patients at that office. It had nothing to do with Roe but I had one this year. I'm over 40, have 2 kids and, while my wife wasn't required to sign off on it, they did ask about it several times. Meanwhile my brother-in-law, late 30's, neither him or his wife (even later 30's) ever want kids, can't find a reliable doctor to perform one in this are (not FL).

FrustratedMonky 3y ago

Isn't this more obvious? These are guys that don't want to 'accidently' get someone pregnant, since now there are fewer options for dealing with the 'problem'.

cassepipe 3y ago

I was rooting for Vasalgel very much but it was supposed to be commercialized in 2017... The Parsemus Fundation recently sold the tech to : https://nextlifesciences.org/ https://nextlifesciences.org/ Hope it works out some day

Ancapistani 3y ago
That's unfortunate. I've been on their mailing list since I was in my early twenties - I was married, and while I didn't particularly want more children, I would have been willing to accept the risk as part of a study to help the technology progress. I would have even been willing to participate in a double-blind, placebo-controlled study on its effectiveness, knowing that there would be a ~50% chance that I was just having completely unprotected sex. Now I'll be 40 in a few months and it appears it's no closer to market than it was when I was 20.

ridgered4 3y ago

My vasectomy left me with life long pain and discomfort, particularly when sitting. This is after a long period of (essentially) torture that had me seriously considering how to commit suicide. The only treatment offered involves cutting holes in my abdomen to draw out and skeletonize the stalks connecting my testicles hopefully killing all nerves. It probably won't cause the testicle to die although there is a small chance the blood supply will fail. Just like there was a small chance of lightning bolts of pain shooting through to my back, warmth spreads and pins and needles down my legs and pain in my hips and lower abdomen so there was no need to impress these possibility onto me. Just the casual mention of the possibility of pain, which I figured would be occasional aching of the testicles. It remains the worst decision I've made in my entire life.

ryanklee 3y ago
Sorry for your condition, but I think it'd be a big mistake for anyone to listen to your experience and make any decisions based on it. Looks like something like 1-2% rate of hematoma and the same for PVPS when performed by experienced physicians.[0] Edit: These are rates for minor complications. The incident rate for major ones requiring post-procedure interventions is 0.1%. [0]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8255399/#sec-3title https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8255399/#sec-3t...
- RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm 3y ago
  Remember when COVID hit and some people were saying "1% chance of death isn't much" and then they had to be informed that 1% is very high and we're in serious trouble? Why is 1% low when we're talking about lifelong pain?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - colpabar 3y ago
    Easy, because the commenter making that argument is a proponent of men getting vasectomies, and they are choosing to interpret the statistics in a way that is favorable to their position. Just like what the people you are describing were doing with covid stats. Just like what people do with statistics on gun crimes or school shootings. To me it seems like whenever statistics get posted on HN the discussion is bound to devolve into pointless arguments. Statistics are crucial and necessary and we have to have hard data to support everything when said hard data supports MY positions, but when it supports YOURS it's obviously biased and incomplete and inaccurate and useless. And I guess I should point out that I am in no way saying statistics shouldn't be used when making decisions. It's just that whenever I see them posted here, it means I'm not going to learn anything from that particular comment thread and it's time to move on to the next one.

kgwxd 3y ago

> Overturning Roe v Wade has been a brutal blow for women’s rights in America. The rise in vasectomies may be one very small consolation. What a terrible way to end the article. Especially when it has the subtitle "Brothers are doing it for themselves." It's not a consolation of any amount and calling them "solidarity snips" is the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard. No one gave that reason with a straight face. There's no author credited on the page, I wonder why.

tivert 3y ago
> No one gave that reason with a straight face. There's no author credited on the page, I wonder why. IIRC, it's the Economist's house style. So, if you read that magazine, you may be taking some green 20-something's pronouncements as more authoritative than they should be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist#Editorial_anonymity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist#Editorial_anonym...

aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 3y ago

I got my vasectomy earlier this year specifically because of the Dobbs decision. My wife and I agreed that a total ban on abortion (and potentially restricted access to birth control) is no longer out of the question.

securingsincity 3y ago

I had one done earlier this year. The doctor told me he was pretty much booked non stop since the time of that decision. I had jokingly said I missed the peak season of march madness. He said that in the past it was the peak season but times had seriously changed in the last year. He didn't bring it up specifically but he said he had around 5-7 consults a day since June of 2022, with a couple surgeries a day.