Vasectomies for all

[LadySparrow]

Sorry if this isn’t the right chat, I’m in the Bluestocking and various others if checks needed.

Just back from a night out with several pissed off women -as we should be- so possibly not at my most coherent.

A question was raised - if vasectomies are 90% reversible, why are young men not required to have vasectomies in order to have sex. As opposed to the majority view that women should be on hormonal contraceptives.

The majority of contraception “fails” seems to be from the male POV and perspective that if women are on the pill/implant/injection and it fails then they are solely liable.

In which case why are men not given a vasectomy option at a young age with the possibility of a reversal if they change their minds.

Thoughts? There were many in my group tonight, curious to see what people think.

I'd take it further and force men to deposit large quantities of sperm into their own personal banks to start future families and then actually force the vasectomy. Would fix so many problems.

Tongue firmly in cheek. But also. Maybe not?

I think that is a terrible idea. Any woman wanting children will have to go through at least IUI if not IVF to have any chance of getting pregnant. I had to do that for medical reasons and it was horrible. I really wouldn’t wish it on anyone else even as a tongue in cheek comment.

Why IVF? Turkey baster?

Because the penis is the pinnacle of NHS aspiration. They must always go up! They spend so much money ensuring men get boners into their 70s andbstudying boners and how to get them more often, we could have employed thousands more midwives. But nah, women and babies and gynae doesnt matter as much as THE FUNCTIONAL PENIS.

if you can never trust a man with contraception, what's the point of vasectomies at all? personally I trust DH when he said he had one. the lack of pregnancy vindicates my trust. not every man is like the arses you've dated.

Not sure this is universally true tbf.

I've known two men with low testosterone who had serious issues with sex drive and erectile dysfunction. One was well within the treatment ranges advised by the British Society for Sexual Medicine but his GP refused to treat him as they ignore the accepted ranges and have a much lower cutoff. He was 9 nmol (should be above 12) but GP said would need to be below 8.7 nmol. The average for people ten years his senior was 21 nmol!

Not sure what happened to the 2nd guy but the above one went from around 27yo to early 40s totally celibate. Eventually found a solution but it costs him £300 a month as the NHS only fund it for very specific things like MS. And he's missed his chance to have kids now. Viagra etc had stopped working long ago as the problem wasn't addressed in time. He thinks the issue is lost vascular function as you need regular erections to stay healthy and he went years without.

He told me that GPs can freely prescribe testosterone to women but not men. Also that he'd been told he'd have been much more likely to get hormones if he was a woman wanting to become a man rather than a man with male issues. Don't know how much of that's true but a quick Google seems to indicate that men with ED caused by hormone deficiencies usually have to go private and that if the NHS does treat them it won't monitor estradiol which very often causes secondary ED due to aromatisation (this is a standard and easily monitored procedure in private care).

The grass always looks greener but I don't think it actually is.

Rather than anecdata:
Between 2011 and 2020, the NIHR awarded roughly £216 million total to the entire Reproductive Health and Childbirth sector. Spanned across a decade, that averages to just around £21.6 million per year to cover all UK public research into reproductive medicine, babies, and maternal care. There were roughly 7 million live births in the UK over that ten-year period. That means at least 7 million pregnancies reached full term, alongside millions more women who experienced miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, or stillbirths. Millions more required help for non-pregnancy related issues. Roughly 1 in 3 women face a reproductive or gynecological health issue in their lifetime (such as endometriosis, severe menopause symptoms, fibroids, or heavy menstrual bleeding).

The NHS does not fund ED treatments as a lifestyle choice, but it routinely pays for them when ED is a side effect of serious clinical conditions. Over the last decade, the NHS typically spent between £15 million and £40 million annually on ED drug prescriptions and vacuum pumps alone. Helping 400,000 to 750,000 individual men get erections each year during that decade.

Given this, we need to be asking which is more valuable to society because we can see which is of higher value to the NHS.

The problem is that you're trying to make this into a man vs woman thing. In reality, it's as much a problem for the woman in a relationship as it is for the man if she wants another child and he can't get it up.

Also, framing the ability to have sex as 'a lifestyle choice' is problematic. It's no more a lifestyle choice than having kids is. It's a pretty fundamental part of life for most people.

You haven't thought this through very well.

If your idea was implemented it would certainly stop all those "happy little accidents" that occur.

And how would you get the sperm in the first place?

You would have no right to access it and for those men that wanted to control/abuse their partner it would become another means of control.

But at least both parents would theoretically know that the child was theirs.

Also, these figures seem off. You're comparing research funding against treatment funding. The research grant for reproductive science may be £21.6m per year but this sure as hell isn't the treatment cost! The NHS spends almost £70m a year on IVF alone.

I think you have confirmation bias. You glossed over the fact that the NHS doesn't treat ED as a lifestyle choice and only if due to a more serious condition. Can you imagine if we didn't treat lung cancer or diabetes caused by lifestyle choices! The difference is that these cost the NHS much more money down the line if left untreated whereas men living in misery/forced celibacy doesn't cost them anything.

Either way, who do you think these men are sleeping with? I think it's highly unlikely that the majority of men receiving treatment for ED are in gay relationships or just sitting at home jacking off. The vast majority will be in heterosexual relationships so it's benefitting as many women as men. Also, comparing to topline figures isn't a good method unless we're comparing similar treatments. Fertility treatments are likely short term while ED treatments are usually ongoing for decades. Apples and oranges.

So we don't / shouldn't make official policy for the few - it has to be for the majority.

So eliminate anything you said about the minority (which will sadly always happen regardless) and you gave some great reasons why it would work.

You get the sperm via the usual channels..? Same as how a sperm bank gets it.

Also, I'm not 'really' advocating for this! Or am I.. just brainstorming. Mostly.