If You Care About Children, Get A Vasectomy
I was eighteen when I decided I needed to get one. Let me explain.
It took me until I was twenty-four to finally get it.
To find a doctor that takes such a strong decision seriously when you’re still a teenager can be challenging depending on where you live.
Eventually, I found my body horizontally awaiting the procedure while my mind got up and left the hospital, retracing the steps that got me there.
By then, I had waited for six years to get a vasectomy.
Not because I ever doubted the logic, but life got in the way. I had used those years to reflect on my decision and discuss it.
I also wanted to pay for it myself but couldn’t afford it. I had many opportunities since I qualified for financial assistance, but taking resources away from reproductive health clinics to save myself money wouldn’t feel right.
I recognized I have the male-privilege of freely making decisions about my own body. I knew there were people with more urgent medical and financial situations than mine. I started saving up, I was in no rush.
Eventually, while visiting my parents in Mexico I found a fair price and good timing to get it over with.
My mom volunteers at an orphanage there every weekend, I joined her in giving a chaotic Brazilian percussion lesson to over thirty kids. We also played un-American football for a few hours. The kids were adorable. In order to protect some of the children from their abusive pasts, photography is forbidden at the orphanage.
The Interview
Miguel, my urologist, asked me a few questions during the consultation:
-Do you have kids?
No.
-Do you think you will want to have kids in the future?
I don’t know, depends on my partner, but I definitely don’t need to make my own, in fact, I want to make sure I won’t.
-Do you not want to avoid reproducing for some specific health reason? Or do you have other motives?
“No health reasons, I’m perfectly healthy.
I just decided that if I want children in my life, I can adopt, foster, host an exchange student, volunteer at an orphanage, or if I want to help I can donate to an organization doing better work than I can.
There is no need for me to reproduce. I don’t think a child should have to look like me to receive help, feel loved, or have me raise them.
For every child we conceive, I feel we’re neglecting the urgent needs of the many who are alive and in dire need of help, and for what? because we want them to look like us? I understand the biological desire, but to me it doesn’t justify reproduction. Besides, I personally don’t feel it’s right to start a life during a climate crisis.”
-I understand, and this way you’ll prevent any accidents. Would you prefer general or local anesthesia? Local is slightly cheaper, I personally prefer being put out.
“I’ll do local for the experience”.
-So you’ll be awake, last question, do you like classic rock?
“Sure, why not.”
The Vasectomy
After my area was shaved by a nurse whose lack of tact made me suspect she was underpaid and held a second job kneading dough at a pizzeria, I was rolled into a spotlessly clean and surprisingly spacious room.
Miguel walked in first with an anonymous female nurse, I was glad it wasn’t the one who shaved me once again. Two male nurses followed. It’s true what they say, it does take a village to prevent a child.
“We’re about to start,” said Miguel before walking behind me to click something.
I never expected to lose my fertility to Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, and ACDC, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. It helped everyone relax and focus. Most importantly, it drowned out any discomforting sounds. Just like sex, but I’m glad the playlist wasn’t too sexy.
First, they placed a white rectangular sheet on my zone. Imagine a thin white table cloth, but with a square-shaped, palm-sized hole in the middle.
That hole was the space through which I was to fit the world’s least appetizing centerpiece, an inappropriate take on the traditional fruit basket.
The only painful part was coming up next, getting anesthetized.
It’s injected right into your little friend’s carry-on luggage, and a full minute after it travels up your body, it triggers what feels like a slow punch to the bladder, from the inside. Then they have to do the other ball.
They pinched me and asked if I felt it down there. I couldn’t feel any pain, but I could certainly sense my bodyparts being moved around.
I found it hilarious that the two male assistants were doing most of the suffering. I laughed as they watched from the corner of the room. It’s not easy to witness a scrotum being operated on if you have one. They were bending over in empathy.
I know for sure that most of my scrotum-endowed readers have visibly flinched and clutched while reading this. I didn’t look once, I was laying flat so it was a risky move.
I could feel my other elbow skin being stitched back together after both sides were done. It didn’t hurt, but I could feel the string running through my skin.
Miguel then turned towards me:
-We’re done! That was a fast one, you were the one that came in for the circumcision, right?
“Ahahah nice one, I was thinking of jokes the whole time”.
-Yeah I love that one, I’d been holding it in. Are you feeling good?
“Yes, that was easier than going to the dentist. Thank you for everything. I’ll be naming my first-born Miguel in your honor”.
The Aftermath
We crab-walked to the car and my dad drove me home. I felt sore, the fact that Mexico has some of the largest speed bumps in the world didn’t help. I rested for a week to avoid any complications.
I announced my vasectomy on Facebook and despite not having shared my reasoning, I was surprisingly flooded with overwhelmingly positive feedback. In retrospect, I should have organized a vasectomy shower.
Months later in Mexico City, I tested my sperm count. On average we have 15 million sperm to more than 200 million sperm per milliliter of semen. My results returned with a big fat zero. I chuckled at the automatic warning stating I fell below the normal range.
I Know You Want To Know
Yes, sex is the same if not better since now you don’t have to worry about impregnating anyone.
Yes, you must continue to use condoms to avoid STDs.
Yes, you still ejaculate semen, but it doesn’t contain sperm.
Yes, you are still producing sperm, it just doesn’t join the ride.
Imagine an empty bobsled. It gets there, but nobody’s there to take the trophy.
The Main Reasons I Got Vasectomy
Reproduction is unnecessary, we owe it to no one.
Parenting is incredibly hard. A study of two thousand Germans found that having children was rated as one of the worst decisions in their life, more detrimental to happiness than divorce, unemployment, or even the death of a partner.
I admire good parents, I think mine did a fantastic job, but it’s clearly an extreme amount of work. A few nations like Germany, Finland, or Denmark, provide sufficient help to new families, but most don’t.
Even though you can definitely be a fantastic parent while simultaneously expressing regret at your decision to become one, the risk of being brutally shamed and considered a terrible parent is enough pressure to stop many from openly criticizing the experience as not being worthwhile.
Additionally, the massive effort and social pressure involved makes it hard to admit the experience may not have been rewarding enough considering all the work invested in it.
Those among us who inadvertently succumb to societal and cultural pressures to reproduce are already more vulnerable to this outside influence going into parenthood.
Men need to take responsibility for contraception.
We who have the power to impregnate others, carry the responsibility not to. Lock your weapon with a condom, or even better, shoot blanks with a vasectomy. Don’t assume everyone is walking around with a bulletproof shield. Be responsible.
No more expecting women (or anyone else with the capacity to be impregnated) to have to constantly defend themselves from our bodies by putting their own through tubal ligation, IUDs, birth control pills, or other methods of contraception.
They already have to deal with sexism, menstruation, abortion, and all of the ways we try to control what they do with their bodies. Let’s give them a break and focus on doing our part.
Vasectomies not only have lower rates of complications, but they are simpler procedures and cost less.
Choosing to conceive because we want to make sure the child looks and acts like us is a terrible reason to reproduce.
In my opinion, a person who would welcome a child to their family only if said child resembles them genetically (in skin tone, hair color, facial features, height, etc) is someone who does not have the right values in place to raise a compassionate human being.
A child should not have to look like us to receive our help, experience love, or have us raise and care for them.
When I was younger, I was concerned my values could cause problems with future partners. However, I quickly realized that a partner who would value reproducing themselves over my companionship and considering alternatives is a partner I would not need to be with.
Having kids is the worst thing you can do to the environment.
People like me who live in “first-world” countries tend to have excessive environmental footprints.
It definitely helps when we eat plant-based, avoid air travel, recycle, avoid cars, and protest the corporate interests responsible for most of the damage. When we lead through example, we can help create and build movements that result in sociopolitical shifts around the world. It empowers us.
Adding a child to the world is not only the most harmful act most of us can individually force upon our planet, but forcing a child into existence during a climate crisis is questionable parenting itself.
An unlivable environment is the worst future you can give kids.
There are billions of already-born people in desperate need of help. It makes sense for us to focus on the challenges we face rather than add victims to the challenges that plague us.
If you feel your motivation and capacity to help is better when directed at human children, go for it. Adopt, foster, donate, volunteer your time and skills. At the same time, if you happen to not feel comfortable around children, it is equally valid to choose to help human adults, non-human animals, or the environment instead.
Our current pandemic, climate crisis, and population records have millions of people reconsidering having their own children, and the decisions we are making today determine the life expectancy and quality of every generation ahead of us.
I hope I don’t have to stand with your children at the famine lines.
I dread the day I have no choice but to compete for asylum with your children when we all become climate refugees.
I fear being drafted into a war against your children as our nations begin desperate climate-change driven resource wars.
This is not about being pessimistic. It’s about being responsible and caring for others.
If you met me after reading my writing, you’d likely be surprised by how happy, young, grateful, and optimistic I am.
Young people already face unprecedented problems that need to be solved immediately. I am confident we can solve them together.
I beg you to join us in doing everything you can to spare us all of the bad outcomes we’re headed towards.
We may not be your biological children, but we hope that this won’t stop you from helping us create a better world for everyone. One where we care for one another as if the others were our own children.
If you would like to learn of additional ideas that could steer our future in the right direction, I’ve shared my perspective in regards to the current pandemic and how it could have been avoided.
