this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2024
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You can’t get yourself sterilised in case some future man wants to use your baby factory.
Chilling.
This happened to me in the USA. I told the doctor I want to be sterilized and neither my husband nor I wanted kids.
He told me it would be unethical. My husband might die and then my new husband would want children. I told him I would not change my mind, and such a man would be incompatible for marriage with me. He told me I’d change my mind. So basically, yes some hypothetical future man would want to use me for a baby factory, that’s why I can’t be sterilized.
I was 30. I’m older now, still don’t want them. I’m too ashamed to ask again for sterilization. My husband has a vasectomy scheduled soon (weird how a doctor had no problem doing that for him. Wonder what the difference is????)
Get that OB/GYN's statement in writing and then report him.
It was years ago.
Easier said than done, anyway. I was just shocked he said that. I'm sure if I wanted his statement in writing he would have written something like "I don't recommend this for women who have not yet had children because there are plenty of other effective treatments like [etc]" and nobody would care.
Someone at my work was told something similar by a different doctor (in a different state!) that he wouldn't sterilize her because she wasn't married. She had 3 children already in her mid twenties.
Pushing back on this stuff is a battle that shouldn't have to take place on the personal level. We're going backwards in women's healthcare in America, too.