Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri (PPSLR) has been advertising “free” vasectomies to underprivileged men in the wake of the reversal of Roe v. Wade.
According to Planned Parenthood, uninsured men will be able to undergo a “free” (to them) vasectomy, which can cost up to $1,000, at three locations November 3-5 — in Springfield, Joplin, and St. Louis. The vasectomies will be performed in a mobile clinic. It’s advertised as “free” because Planned Parenthood will help the men access Medicaid (taxpayer-funded government health insurance) in order to pay for the vasectomies, which essentially means taxpayers will fund the sterilization of men who don’t currently have access to health insurance.
Planned Parenthood will, of course, still be paid for sterilizing the men.
Likewise, Dr. Esgar Guarin said he will take his own vasectomy mobile clinic — dubbed the “Nutcracker” — on the road this month in Iowa to give free vasectomies to 40 men, and will also offer discounted vasectomies at his clinic in the Des Moines area.
The abortion giant said it decided to entice men to get ‘free’ vasectomies following the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in June which reversed Roe v. Wade. Dr. Margaret Baum of Planned Parenthood insinuated that the fear of getting a woman pregnant and not being able to kill the preborn child in an abortion led to an increased interest in vasectomies — which may or may not be reversible if or when the men decide they are ready for children.
“Since the Dobbs decision we have seen an increasing number of male-bodied people coming and requesting this service,” Baum said. “We performed 142 vasectomies in 2021, already this year we’ve done close to 200 in 2022, and the year’s not out yet.”
But this increased number of vasectomies was something Planned Parenthood decided to encourage further. And yet, this enthusiastic targeting of underprivileged men — given the organization’s history of endorsing and participating in eugenic sterilization — leaves some concerned.
Planned Parenthood has been pro-eugenics since its founder Margaret Sanger created the American Birth Control League (later to become Planned Parenthood) in order to heavily promote birth control for certain women — namely the poor and minorities. She infamously argued that “undesirables” such as minorities, the poor, the disabled, and the mentally ill were “human weeds” who shouldn’t be allowed to “breed.” And Planned Parenthood’s birth control agenda was “aimed at cutting welfare costs” and “attacking poverty” by preventing poor couples from having children.
In addition, in the 1960s and 1970s, poor minority women were pressured into sterilization, and many had sterilization forced upon them. When an anti-sterilization feminist group, the Advisory Committee on Sterilization, was formed in New York City in 1975, it sought to end coercive sterilization but was met with resistance from Planned Parenthood as well as the National Organization for Women (NOW) and the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). These groups refused to protect vulnerable poor and minority women in order to protect access to abortion, which had been legalized in 1973. Planned Parenthood even led the opposition to a bill requiring a 30-day waiting period before sterilization.
So it should come as no surprise that Planned Parenthood’s Baum calls it “exciting” to sterilize these men and promotes both male and female sterilization as “great procedures.” Female sterilization is considered permanent.
“A female sterilization, which is a great procedure, has to be done in a hospital setting, under general anesthesia with entry into the abdominal cavity. (It requires) a couple weeks off work, and, certainly, much higher cost in terms of all the hospital and anesthesia and everything,” Baum said. “They’re both great procedures, but I think it’s really exciting to see so much interest in vasectomies.”
Population control has been a motivating factor behind the creation of and continued work of Planned Parenthood. With pro-life laws now protecting preborn children from abortion in a multitude of states, perhaps this is a sign that the abortion giant will begin to more fervently promote birth control and sterilization, especially for certain demographics.
