Denying healthcare: the perceived gender gap in sterilization procedures

There are many stories on the internet of women’s hardships on getting their tubes tied.  

Compared to the little number of stories regarding men and their hardships on getting a vasectomy, it seems like women aren’t allowed the same type of healthcare men are. Many refer to women as being less in control of their bodies than men.  

Tubal ligation, getting your tubes tied and tubal sterilization all refer to the procedure that permanently prevents pregnancy. According to the Mayo Clinic, less than one of out every 100 women will get pregnant in the first year after the procedure. The age at which the procedure was done also affects this likelihood, as younger women have an increased chance of pregnancy. A vasectomy is the permanent form of male birth control. According the Mayo Clinic, this procedure is almost 100% effective in preventing pregnancy.

These procedures are permanent and the decision to have one should not be taken lightly. Each procedure varies in how invasive it is, the likelihood of side-affects and the level of difficulty to reverse them.  

Having this in mind, the decision to get your tubes tied is personal. Doctors, healthcare providers, lawmakers or anyone outside of the woman and her partner should not be part of that decision.  

However, this is not the case. 

The Guttmacher Institute is a nonprofit self-proclaimed pro-choice research organization that works to study and educate others on sexual and reproductive health while advancing sexual and reproductive rights. According to this organization, 18 states allow some health care providers to refuse to provide sterilization services, 17 states allow individual health care providers to refuse these services and 16 states allow some health care institutions to refuse these services. 

There was no mention if these services are strictly for men or strictly for women, which makes it hard to understand whether it’s harder for women to receive sterilization services than men. 

In 2018, a Facebook post from Deonna Mimix started a conversation on the internet about this topic. The post stated women need to be 25, married, have at least one son and one daughter, and the woman’s husband must agree for the procedure to be done while men could just walk into a healthcare facility and get a vasectomy. 

This post angered many people, including myself. However, I quickly noted that there were no facts or sources to this story. These restrictions seemed overkill.  

Snopes, the fact checking website, debunked those claims as exaggeratory in response to the difficulty some women face in regards to getting their tubes tied. The article mentioned physicians sometimes decline to perform the procedure on young women, women who are childless or have only one child and women whose partners aren’t involved or don’t agree with the decision.

In reality, there is no strict age limit on adult women who want the procedure through private insurance or who pay out of pocket. Those on federally funded insurance plans must be 21 years old and have the procedure at least 30 days after verbally expressing the desire for the procedure.   

This is the same for vasectomies. Men can also be denied for the procedure. There are plenty of stories out there about these cases, too. They just aren’t shared as often, making it seem like they don’t occur at the same rate.  

Do I think it’s wrong that doctors can deny people elective procedures? Yes, but they have the right to do that and we can’t change that right away.  

However, what we can do is work to stop spreading falsehoods over social media. When you see a tweet or a Facebook post without sources or evidence behind the claims, make sure to do your own research and check things out for yourself.  Don’t just take claims at face-value.  

Nicole Hindberg can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @HindbergNicole