Free vasectomies will be offered at Missouri clinics in response to an increase in demand after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade.
Sixty procedures will be available at mobile clinics in St Louis, Springfield and Joplin as part of an initiative led by the family planning charity, Planned Parenthood, during the first week of November.
In June, the United States Supreme Court, America’s highest court, voted to overturn the constitutional right to choose abortionwhich has existed for more than 50 years.
The controversial decision means that a woman’s right to decide is now determined individually by each of the 50 US states.
A few weeks later in July, Planned Parenthood clinics in St Louis and southwestern Missouri performed 42 vasectomies — down from just 10 in the same month in 2021.
Female sterilizations rose to 18 from just three a year earlier.
The operations will be offered to uninsured patients by Dr Esgar Guarin – who will run the so-called “Nutcracker” mobile clinics alongside the charity.
He then plans to offer 40 more free vasectomies in the state of Iowa.
The program was launched on World Vasectomy Day.
Dr. Guarin, who sits on the annual event’s medical advisory board, said: “This is a very special time for reproductive rights in the United States. And we need to talk about it.”
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists reports that more and more people are seeking the procedure.
Meanwhile, the national Planned Parenthood website has seen a 53% increase in searches for vasectomy information over the past 100 days, a spokesperson for the charity said.
And data on Google Trends showed vasectomy searches hit an all-time high after the US Supreme Court announced its ruling.
In Texas, which introduced a strict abortion law following the ruling, the Austin Urology Institute reports performing 50% more vasectomies.
Many patients are men who do not want to become fathers and see access to abortion as a back-up if birth control fails, according to the institute’s Dr Koushik Shaw.
“It really pushed family planning to the forefront of people’s thoughts,” he said.
Dr. Margaret Baum, Medical Director of Planned Parenthood in the St. Louis and Southwestern Missouri area, will work alongside Dr. Guarin.
She added: “I think people are afraid, first of all, that abortion is not accessible, which I think is a very real and legitimate fear and in the reality of much of the people of our country.
“And I think people are also really scared (of) what might be next.”
“Sinister circumstances in which I made this decision”
Truck driver Denny Dalliance, 31, signed up for a free vasectomy after fearing the consequences of having a child because he worked away from home most of the time.
Missouri, her home state, was among the first in the United States to introduce a trigger law banning abortion at any time during pregnancy.
Mr Dalliance said: “These are dark circumstances in which I made this decision.
“I don’t want to sound like I’m unhappy doing this, but this is a situation where my hands were forced in regards to the Roe vs. Wade decision.”
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“I feel like with the extreme cost of having a child in the United States, I’ve been put at a price.
“And so, I’m the one cashing in my chips, so to speak.
“It’s the right ethical decision for me, but it’s not a decision taken lightly.”
