As economy flags, vasectomies rise

The pregnant woman showed up at the medical centre in flip-flops and in tears, after walking there to save bus fare. Her boyfriend had lost his job, she told her doctor in Oakland and now—fearing harder times for her family—she wanted to abort what would have been her fourth child.
“This was a desired pregnancy but they re-evaluated expenses and decided not to continue,” said Dr Pratima Gupta. “When I was doing the options counselling, she interrupted me, crying, and said, ‘I just walked here for an hour. I’m sure of my decision.’”
Other doctors are hearing similarly wrenching tales. For many Americans, the recession is affecting their most intimate decisions about sex and family planning. Doctors and clinics are reporting that many women are choosing abortions and even more men are having vasectomies because they cannot afford a child.
The recent anecdotal data, if they hold, would have a historical parallel in the Great Depression, when the birth rate fell sharply.
As this recession continues, it is understandable that more people might hesitate to expand their families. A baby born in 2006—the latest year for which data are available—will cost middle-income parents $260,000 by the time the child reaches 17, according to the Agriculture Department. And that doesn’t include college.
In California, Planned Parenthood says that compared with last year’s first quarter, requests for vasectomies were up more than 30% in the first three months of this year at its clinics in San Diego and Riverside Counties, where 64 of the procedures were done. “The recession has created a new level of urgency among our clients,” said Vince Hall, a spokesman. “We used to have a three- to six-week waiting period. Now men have to wait two-and-a-half months to get an appointment.”
Helping spur demand, he said, might be the fact that unemployed men often qualify for free vasectomies under Family PACT, a California family planning program for low-income households.
On the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where the financial industry’s collapse has compressed many a household budget, Dr Marc Goldstein says he has been performing more vasectomies than usual over the last five months.
Through most of last year, Goldstein, who directs male reproductive medicine and microsurgery at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, was performing about six vasectomies a month. Then, in November, the number rose to nine, where it was holding steady through the end of March. “I’ve been in practice for 30 years, and I’ve never seen a spike like this,” Goldstein said. “Many of my clients work in finance and say they feel anxious about the expense of an added child.” NYT & AGENCIES