More and more young women have chosen to get surgical sterilization over the past few years amid a global fertility crisis due to a number of factors.
While some are making this choice for personal reasons, others are choosing sterilization over their political views. One example is Michigan state lawmaker Laurie Pohutsky, who announced earlier this month that she had undergone a sterilization procedure because she did not want to get pregnant under President Donald Trump's administration.
The Decision To Undergo a Sterilization Procedure
The 36-year-old lawmaker announced her decision to get the procedure during a political rally, which has attracted national attention as well as death threats. The backlash to Pohutsky's announcement was primarily because it politicized personal choice.
However, what the situation also brought is attention to an issue that has gotten little attention as of late, which is that there is a growing number of young women who are making the same decision to get sterilized amid a global fertility crisis, according to Deseret.
Research that was published last month in the journal Health Affairs found that the incidence of both tubal ligation and vasectomy grew after May 2022. This was seen among men and women ages 19 to 26, which was a two-fold increase for women.
The timing of the growth coincided with the United States Supreme Court's decision in June 2022 to return the question of abortion to states amid the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization case.
The situation is also seen with the rise in the number of individuals who sought sterilization at UnityPoint Health-Meriter Hospital in Madison. This number has more than doubled since the Supreme Court decided to overturn the decades-old abortion protections three years ago, The Cap Times reported.
Increasing Number of Patients
A recent study by researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison reviewed OB-GYN patient records from 2016 to 2023. It found that following the Supreme Court's ruling on the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization case, the yearly rate of sterilization procedures at UnityPoint Health-Meriter Hospital jumped by 106%.
On top of this, the study found that the number of young people who are opting for permanent birth control options is on the rise. A similar study by the University of Michigan showed an increase in sterilization requests following the Supreme Court's ruling.
Other than females, it was found that vasectomy procedures also increased by 95%, which is still not as high as tubal ligation. An associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Penn State College of Medicine, Dr. Sarah Horvath, said that patients are afraid of losing access to different kinds of reproductive care, as per The Guardian.
