Men snip to help in family planning
Print Edition
THOUSANDS of men around the world were to be sterilized yesterday in what organizers dubbed a global “vasectomy-athon,” to encourage men to take a bigger role in family planning and combat resistance to the procedure.
Some 750 doctors in 25 countries were to perform the procedure on more than 3,000 volunteers to mark World Vasectomy Day, with many operations being provided for free or at discounted rates.
“In helping to shoulder responsibility for family planning, men become heroes to their partners, to their families and to our future,” said event co-founder Jonathan Stack.
The event is being held as a report from campaigners and donors warned efforts to get modern contraceptives to women in some of the world’s poorest countries are not on track, with millions fewer reached than had been hoped.
At a ceremony in a temple on the Indonesian island of Bali, the headquarters for the event this year, the first six men to undergo the procedure were presented to an audience before being taken outside to mobile health clinics to be sterilized.
The men laid on an operating table in the clinics — buses fitted out with medical equipment — while doctors performed the short procedure, which involves cutting the tubes which transport sperm from the testicles, under a local anaesthetic.
Vasectomies were also being carried out to mark the day in countries including India, the United States and Spain.
Around four in 10 pregnancies worldwide are unplanned and event organizers said that family planning is still too often left to women, who must deal with the consequences of unintended pregnancies.
In many countries, under 1 percent of men get vasectomies, despite the fact the procedure is safe and in the majority of cases has no effect on sex life, the organizers said.
In Muslim-majority Indonesia, efforts to persuade men to get vasectomies have been hampered after the country’s top Islamic clerical body several years ago declared the procedure “haram,” or against Islamic law.
Other attempts to encourage vasectomies have backfired. A district on Sumatra said in 2012 that it would hand out cash to civil servants who underwent the procedure — only for the move to spark anger from women who feared their sterilized husbands would have affairs.
In many countries, campaigners have to overcome the misguided belief that it impairs a man’s virility.
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