With Roe overthrown, doctors see growing demand for sterilization procedures: Blows

0

Dani Marietti’s “sterilization shower” in Helena, Montana, features cookies with abortion rights slogans, such as “My body, my choice,” written on them in frosting.

Ellis Juhlin/Yellowstone Public Radio


hide caption

toggle caption

Ellis Juhlin/Yellowstone Public Radio


Dani Marietti’s “sterilization shower” in Helena, Montana, features cookies with abortion rights slogans, such as “My body, my choice,” written on them in frosting.

Ellis Juhlin/Yellowstone Public Radio

In July, a handful of people gathered under the shade of a tall pine tree in Helena, Montana, for a sort of going away party.

Their friend, Dani Marietti, was about to have her fallopian tubes removed.

It was a decision she made after a proposed US Supreme Court decision to strike down the constitutional right to abortion was leaked to the press.

The small group kicked off the ‘sterilization shower’ for the 25-year-old by putting up chalked signs saying ‘See Ya Later Ovulate’ and ‘I have 99 problems but the tubes are not one’ . They nibbled on cookies with abortion rights slogans, such as “My body, my choice,” written on them in icing.

Marietti is a full-time graduate student at Helena working towards becoming a therapist. She doesn’t want kids to get in the way of her career. She had previously considered permanent sterilization, but the possibility of the Supreme Court overturning Roe vs. Wade pushed her to seek out an OB-GYN who would help her with a permanent method of birth control.

“‘I want to do it as soon as possible,'” she recalled telling the doctor.

“I always knew I didn’t want kids, and of course when you say that as a young person, everyone’s like, ‘Oh, you’re going to change your mind’ or ‘Just wait until find that one,'” Marietti said. “I always kind of ignored that.”

Doctors see growing demand for sterilization

Abortion is still legal in Montana, but it’s unclear if it will remain so.

State Attorney General Austin Knudsen, a Republican, has asked the Montana Supreme Court to reverse its 1999 ruling that the state constitution’s right to privacy includes the right to terminate to a pregnancy.

Uncertainty surrounding abortion access in Montana and other states where abortion is now or could become illegal, as well as fear of future legal battles over long-term contraception, have apparently spurred an increase the number of people seeking surgical sterilization, according to reports from doctors. This includes Marietti, who is undergoing a salpingectomy – a procedure in which the fallopian tubes are removed instead of tied, as in tubal ligation, which can be reversible.

How many people requested permanent sterilization after the fall of deer won’t become clear until next year, says Megan Kavanaugh, a researcher at the Guttmacher Institute, which collects reproductive health care data across the United States and supports abortion rights.

But anecdotal reports indicate that more people have undergone permanent birth control procedures since the Supreme Court’s June 24 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health OrganizationWho knocked deer.

Dr. Kavita Arora, who chairs the ethics committee of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, says healthcare providers across the country are starting to see an influx of patients into their operating rooms.

Arora, an obstetrician-gynecologist in North Carolina, shared what one of her patients said just before a recent surgery: “She wanted to have self-control over her body, and it was her way of making sure that ‘she was the person who had to make the decisions.”

More adults in their 20s and 30s without children are coming to the hospital for sterilization consultations, says Dr. Marilee Simons, obstetrician-gynecologist at Bozeman Health Deaconess Hospital in Montana.

Many are women who are already using long-term birth control options, but “still worry about unwanted pregnancy and what it might mean in the future,” she says.

Most ask to have their tubes removed to permanently prevent pregnancy. A smaller number of people request hysterectomies, which surgically remove part or all of the uterus. To meet demand, Bozeman Deaconess has dedicated at least one provider to work with these patients several days a week.

Planned Parenthood of Montana President and CEO Martha Fuller said clinics across the state have seen an “unprecedented” increase in the number of patients asking to be sterilized, including requests for vasectomies.

Dani Marietti (holding a sign) and his friends gather for a “sterilization shower” in Helena, Montana, in July before Marietti has to have his fallopian tubes surgically removed.

Ellis Juhlin/Yellowstone Public Radio


hide caption

toggle caption

Ellis Juhlin/Yellowstone Public Radio


Dani Marietti (holding a sign) and his friends gather for a “sterilization shower” in Helena, Montana, in July before Marietti has to have his fallopian tubes surgically removed.

Ellis Juhlin/Yellowstone Public Radio

Patients face barriers

But some people seeking sterilization procedures across the United States are turned down.

Arora says patients who don’t have children and are of childbearing age report difficulty finding doctors willing to sterilize them. Their reluctance may stem from studies that suggest patients who are sterilized at age 30 or younger are about twice as likely as those over age 30 to express regret after undergoing the procedure. However, other studies have had mixed results and found that some women feel less regret over time.

Some patients who have been denied sterilization have turned to therapists like Barbara DeBree, who has a private practice in Helena and writes letters to providers attesting that patients have considered their decisions. “It’s not a quick decision for them,” DeBree said.

Cost and insurance coverage can also be issues for patients seeking sterilization procedures.

Helena resident Alex Wright, 23, has no plans to have children and wants to be sterilized.

She plans to schedule a consultation to see if her provider will perform the procedure. If her regular provider doesn’t, she says she’ll look for someone from online lists of providers who are willing to perform the procedure on younger people.

“It’s only useful if I can get the financial help to have it taken care of by these people,” she says. Wright says her insurance company estimates she’ll pay about $4,000 out of pocket if she chooses an in-network provider. Using an out-of-network doctor could cost a lot more.

Some fear future ‘contraception attacks’

Although some people are asking for permanent procedures in response to the Dobbs decision, others do so because they believe the United States Supreme Court will continue to overturn reproductive health standards.

Kavanaugh, Guttmacher’s researcher, says Judge Clarence Thomas opened that door by suggesting in his concurring opinion in Dobbs that other precedents should be reviewed, including that of 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut ruling that banning contraceptives violates a married couple’s right to privacy.

“I think we anticipate there will be attacks on birth control,” Kavanaugh said.

That’s what worries Shandel Buckalew, of Billings, Montana, who wants a full hysterectomy.

The 31-year-old says her doctor thinks she has endometriosis, a painful condition in which tissue that normally grows inside the uterus grows on other parts of the reproductive organs. Buckalew hasn’t had the full range of tests that may be needed for a diagnosis because she doesn’t have health insurance and can’t afford it.

“Even if I have an IUD [intrauterine device]the amount of cramping and the pain I’m feeling – oh, I’m getting so sick,” she says.

Buckalew hopes a hysterectomy will ease that pain, in addition to providing permanent birth control, as she does not want children. But his lack of health insurance makes the procedure unaffordable.

She is trying to get health insurance before her IUD expires in two years because she fears the landscape of reproductive health care will change dramatically.

“I feel like my life doesn’t matter,” she says.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism on health issues. Along with policy analysis and polling, KHN is one of the three main operating programs of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed non-profit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

Share.

Comments are closed.