Vasectomies

Eleven women members of the Arkansas House of Representatives introduced legislation Monday requiring a waiting period for men who want vasectomies after a bill was passed requiring a waiting period for an abortion. "We will not sit back and allow men to continue to dictate what happens to our bodies," said Rep. Judy Smith, a Democrat from the south Arkansas city of Camden.

Men interested in a permanent form of birth control are turning to an unlikely source for medical advice - "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" correspondent Jason Jones, who televised his vasectomy on Thursday night's program. As Jones describes it, he went to the doctor after suffering for five years from a mysterious malady that caused him to feel lethargic, gain weight and hear voices at night. The stunning diagnosis: "You have children. " And the condition was contagious, Jones explained: "Tragically, through unprotected intercourse, I had spread children to my wife," fellow "Daily Show" correspondent Samantha Bee . “Similar to herpes, you are stuck with children for the rest of you life.” The children the couple already had could not be “cured,” Jones said, but the simple procedure could prevent future “outbreaks.” So he went to Dr. David M. Weiner (yes, that's his real name)

Sterilization is the most widely used method of birth control in the United States. In spite of its popularity, many couples are still unsure about which procedure is best: vasectomy (for men) or tubal ligation (for women). In this country, tubal ligations outnumber vasectomies by almost 2 to 1, but many experts believe those numbers might reverse themselves if all the facts about these procedures were better known. On the surface, the two operations appear quite similar.

Think of the 10 women who just had their fallopian tubes tied at a clinic in northern Colombia as foot soldiers in Erwin Goggel's lonely war on overpopulation and poverty. A film producer and heir to a dairy fortune, Goggel is offering nine-acre plots rent-free to poor men and women who agree to have vasectomies and tubal ligations. He pays for all the surgical procedures, including the 10 operations performed late last month in Monteria, the capital of Cordoba state, about 30 miles south of here.

Two new studies suggest vasectomies increase men's likelihood of developing prostate cancer, but outside experts question the findings and urge men with vasectomies not to get them reversed. Men considering the procedure should weigh the benefits and risks of various birth-control methods before choosing one, along with their partners, doctors said. The findings appear in today's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Assn.

The first thing Ian Tresman wanted to know when he decided to have a vasectomy was what the operation was like for a regular guy who'd been through it. To the distress of the 41-year-old Web page designer, all the information he found about vasectomies on the Web, in bookstores and in libraries read like medical journal entries. "It was a quite a big decision to even consider a vasectomy," said Tresman, who lives outside London with his wife and his two daughters from a previous marriage.

A man who undergoes a vasectomy can have it successfully reversed -- and father a child -- 15 years or more later. In an analysis of 213 men who underwent surgical reversals within 15 years of a vasectomy, doctors at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center found that 90% began producing sperm again. The procedures, all performed by Dr. Marc Goldstein from 1984 to 2001, were randomly selected.

With two small children and no desire for any more, Jim Segermark's wife sat him down for that conversation. It was time he took some responsibility for birth control. After years of taking the pill, his wife had been told by her doctor it wasn't wise to continue. "Tell the old man to get it snipped," the gynecologist had advised wryly. Segermark, then 33, dutifully marched off to the urologist for a vasectomy.

Re "Investigator Says Blake Made Threat," Feb. 27: I don't understand men who don't want children, have unprotected sex and then accuse women of double-dealing when they end up pregnant. If indeed it is Robert Blake's voice on the tape- recorded phone conversation, and he was truly "terrified" that Bonny Lee Bakley would deliberately get pregnant, why didn't he take personal responsibility to ensure that didn't happen? It's astonishing how selfish some men can be by refusing to wear condoms or have vasectomies, then proceeding without shame to destroy an innocent life -- either by pressuring the woman to have an abortion or by subjecting the child to a lifetime of suffering, caught between warring parents or, worse yet, with one dead and another in jail.

The mystery surrounding the paternity of three baby chimpanzees at the Los Angeles Zoo was finally solved Thursday when DNA results were released. Despite a vasectomy in 1996, Shaun, an 11-year-old chimpanzee, is definitely the father, zoo officials announced. He is responsible for the birth of all three chimps during the past year: Toshi, Jean and Jake. The mystery began Jan. 31 when a female chimpanzee was born. None of the zookeepers had noticed that her mother was pregnant.

A man who undergoes a vasectomy can have it successfully reversed -- and father a child -- 15 years or more later. In an analysis of 213 men who underwent surgical reversals within 15 years of a vasectomy, doctors at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center found that 90% began producing sperm again. The procedures, all performed by Dr. Marc Goldstein from 1984 to 2001, were randomly selected.

With two small children and no desire for any more, Jim Segermark's wife sat him down for that conversation. It was time he took some responsibility for birth control. After years of taking the pill, his wife had been told by her doctor it wasn't wise to continue. "Tell the old man to get it snipped," the gynecologist had advised wryly. Segermark, then 33, dutifully marched off to the urologist for a vasectomy.

Re "Investigator Says Blake Made Threat," Feb. 27: I don't understand men who don't want children, have unprotected sex and then accuse women of double-dealing when they end up pregnant. If indeed it is Robert Blake's voice on the tape- recorded phone conversation, and he was truly "terrified" that Bonny Lee Bakley would deliberately get pregnant, why didn't he take personal responsibility to ensure that didn't happen? It's astonishing how selfish some men can be by refusing to wear condoms or have vasectomies, then proceeding without shame to destroy an innocent life -- either by pressuring the woman to have an abortion or by subjecting the child to a lifetime of suffering, caught between warring parents or, worse yet, with one dead and another in jail.

For most American couples, the responsibility of preventing unwanted pregnancy rests with the woman. That's true for a variety of reasons, but one fact is inescapable: Women have more birth-control options, including pills, diaphragms, IUDs, implants, caps, gels, foams, creams, injections and suppositories. Men have two choices: wear a condom or get a vasectomy. Endocrinologist William J.

The first thing Ian Tresman wanted to know when he decided to have a vasectomy was what the operation was like for a regular guy who'd been through it. To the distress of the 41-year-old Web page designer, all the information he found about vasectomies on the Web, in bookstores and in libraries read like medical journal entries. "It was a quite a big decision to even consider a vasectomy," said Tresman, who lives outside London with his wife and his two daughters from a previous marriage.

When Adam Arzate was in eighth grade, he came home from school one day to find a bag of condoms waiting for him. "Hey, what's up with the condoms?" he asked his mother, Yolanda, who is a community outreach worker at Planned Parenthood of Pasadena. She told him that they were for him or his friends. "I don't want to have to go through this later, so I'll tell you about it now," she said. After that, Arzate gained a reputation among his friends as the guy they could ask.

Think of the 10 women who just had their fallopian tubes tied at a clinic in northern Colombia as foot soldiers in Erwin Goggel's lonely war on overpopulation and poverty. A film producer and heir to a dairy fortune, Goggel is offering nine-acre plots rent-free to poor men and women who agree to have vasectomies and tubal ligations. He pays for all the surgical procedures, including the 10 operations performed late last month in Monteria, the capital of Cordoba state, about 30 miles south of here.

When Paul Scott and his fiancee decided to get married earlier this year, they realized they had everything they needed. So, in lieu of gifts, they asked family and friends for something they thought other people needed--vasectomies. Saying that many of the world's problems stem from overpopulation, the couple used $2,800 of their own money to establish a vasectomy fund at Planned Parenthood.