It is true that a vasectomy procedure is simpler than female sterilization surgery. It’s an outpatient surgery where a doctor blocks the vas deferens — the tubes that carry sperm from the testicles to other glands, where the sperm mixes with other fluids and become semen, the stuff that comes out when a man ejaculates. A man who has had a vasectomy still ejaculates, but because his vas deferens are blocked, his semen no longer contains sperm, and thus he can no longer get a partner pregnant. And vasectomies are indeed very effective — they have a failure rate of less than one percent.
Tag: sterilization
Long-Term Data on Complications Adds to Criticism of Contraceptive Implant
When a new contraceptive implant came on the market over a decade ago,
it was considered a breakthrough for women who did not want to have more
children, a sterilization procedure that could be done in a doctor’s
office in just 10 minutes. Now, 13 years later, thousands of women who
claim they were seriously injured by the implant are urging the Food and
Drug Administration to take the device off the market and to warn the
public about its complications.
Abused Women Pick ‘Secret’ Birth Control
Women who are abused by their partner or ex-partner are much less likely to use contraception, which exposes them to sexually transmitted diseases and more frequent unintended pregnancies and abortions. When they do use contraception, these women are less likely to use condoms and more likely to resort to contraceptive methods that they don’t need to discuss with their partners, like contraceptive injections or sterilization in developing countries, or intrauterine devices in Western countries.
The IUD Comeback Continues Apace
New data, released last week as part of the National Survey of Family Growth, finds that 6.4 percent of women ages 15-to-44 are currently relying on intrauterine devices (IUDs) as a method of contraception. While this lags behind those who are using the pill (16 percent) and even sterilization (15.5 percent), it shows a renewed interest and increased trust in a highly effective birth control method that had fallen out of favor. This is good news for public health advocates—many of whom believe that long-acting methods like the IUD are the key to preventing unintended pregnancy in this country.
The Second Most Popular Form of Birth Control Will Surprise You
About 62% of U.S. women from ages 15 to 44 use some form of contraception, and predictably, the pill is still the most popular. About 16% of women used it in 2011-2013, finds the latest report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics. But the second most popular contraceptive may come as a surprise to many: 15.5% of women—just a hair behind the pill—choose female sterilization.
Va. eugenics victims would receive compensation for sterilization under bill
In Richmond — E. Lewis Reynolds was just a boy when his cousin hit him in the head with a rock, nearly killing him and triggering epileptic-like convulsions that lingered for some years.
His condition didn’t stop him from enlisting in the Marine Corps or serving his country in Korea and Vietnam during a 30-year military career.
But it was enough to classify a teenager as a “defective person” and order his compulsory sterilization under an infamous 1924 Virginia law whose aim was to build a more perfect society.
The state has already offered a formal apology for a selective-breeding policy that led to the sterilization of hundreds of mostly poor, uneducated men and women and served as one of the models for eugenics programs in other states and even Nazi Germany.
Now Reynolds, 85, thinks it’s time that Virginia pay compensation, too, to him and perhaps hundreds of others. Read full article.