LOUISVILLE, Colo. — Nearly two years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned abortion rights nationwide, a new study published in JAMA Health Forum found the number of men and women seeking permanent contraception, like a vasectomy or tubes tied, increased significantly after abortion rights were overturned.
On the day Roe was overturned, the number of people searching online for sterilization shot up immediately. Many people followed through with it.
"We definitely have seen an increase," said Dr. Dawn Owens Robinson, an OB-GYN at AdventHealth Avista. "I was in Michigan at the time and there was a tremendous number of increases of people desiring and wanting sterilization as fast as possible because they did not want themselves in a predicament that could put their life in danger."
In the nearly two years post-Roe, Owens Robinson has seen a dramatic shift in the reproductive healthcare landscape.
"People are being proactive in protecting themselves," she said.
According to the study, both operations have increased significantly in adults 18 to 30. The number of women who got a procedure was double that of men.
"I think it's wonderful because young people are telling the U.S. government that I'm in charge of my body, not you," Owens Robinson said. "And they’re taking proactive measures to not be stuck in this chasm that our government has led us in where they could be in a position where their life in danger, their wife or partner’s life is in danger."
Owens Robinson said the Supreme Court decision has changed her own thinking on the procedure.
“Before Roe v. Wade was reversed, I was a little more hesitant in tying women’s tubes that were 21, 22 years old," she said. "But now, the threat to the bodily harm we’re put at risk for and the lack of autonomy over our bodies, I’m granting the wish of patients if they are well informed and do not want to have to go on birth control or IUDs or long-acting reversible contraception. I feel it’s a woman’s autonomy to control her contraceptive wishes."
The decision pushed many people who knew they wanted the procedure into the doctor's office, Owens Robinson said.
“Most of these people had been planning on it. They just hadn’t felt the sense of urgency," she said.
But, she said, demand isn't slowing down.
"The urgency has died down a little bit, but the frequency of requests I don't think has," Owens Robinson said. "And I think that's due to the political climate of our country and the laws and the rules that are being put in place against women's choice."
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