Ever since I was old enough to realise that my ample hips would be wasted if I didn't procreate, I've been wanting to have babies. With THREE-FIVE coming up next week and all the panic that entails, I've calculated exactly how many healthy eggs I have left and no matter how many times people tell me MADONNA didn't give birth until she was 38, one of my Top Ten Anxieties is the fact that I STILL haven't had a baby. My YOUNGER brother is expecting Offspring Number Two (which goes against all the rules of natural evolution if you ask me) and my parents are throwing all previously held convictions out the window and urging me to JUST GET PREGNANT. Knowing all this, you can imagine my wide-eyed reaction to an increasingly popular trend in North America.
Snip-Snip
More and more young men are taking their reproductive rights seriously and opting for a childfree-life. Take Vincent Ciaccio for instance. He was twenty-three when he got a vasectomy which is the fancy word for male sterilisation. Despite the weirdness involved in getting a call from Vienna from someone you don't know wanting to talk about your vasectomy, Vincent was very candid about his reasons for getting The Snip.
title: Interview mit Vincent Ciaccio length: 3:09 Vincent Ciaccio, rep.of nokidding.net, had a vasectomy at age 23. MP3 (3.018MB) | WMA
Just as I'm instinctively inclined to want babies, Vincent has known since he was a teenager that he wasn't the fathering type. Because he lives in New York City, he didn't have too much trouble finding a doctor willing to perform his vasectomy BUT many young men wanting sterilisation are faced with the dilemma of doctors refusing to perform the twenty minute surgery on moral grounds.
This means men are being put in the same arena as women when it comes to the pro-choice/pro-life debate in the United States. An interesting development as far as I'm concerned and what's more interesting is: for the first time ever, the American National Center for Health Scientists have asked men about their family planning and reproductive choices and the results are meant to come out on Father's Day. For the first time EVER American men are being asked about their choices when it comes to having kids - as if they hadn't been involved in the process up until now!
We Are NOT Family
Although my insides twist in a jealous knot whenever a friend or relative announces a pregnancy or even when one of the many FM4 Babies come in for a little visit and an obligatory stopover at Auntie Riem's desk, I'm definitely all for people doing what they want with their sperm and eggs. That's why I was comforted to find an international social club for purposely childless persons on the net (nokidding.net) and wasn't too surprised to discover it was brought to life by a forward-thinking Canadian (Jerry Steinberg-who is billed as the "Founding Non-Father" of the society). As for the state of voluntary sterilisation in Europe, well, French doctors risked criminal charges if they performed vasectomies or the female equivalent-tubal litigation - up until 2001 because of "The Napolean Code", a 19th century law which equates the act of sterilisation to "self-mutilation". Though the law was axed, childfree French men are still faced with doctors refusing to make the cut, so to speak.
That's why there is a quiet yet booming vasectomy tourism market in England, The Netherlands and even macho and mostly Catholic Spain. In Austria, you've got to be at least 25 years old to get a vasectomy and you've got to pay for it yourself as the Krankenkassa usually won't compensate anyone wanting to ensure non-procreation. If you want more information, check this out but be warned, reading up on the whole vasectomy thing made ME wince in phantom pain.
Having been pro-choice all my life, I never once thought that male reproductive rights were also at stake and I have been humbled to discover that they are indeed.
Thanks Vinny.
Österreich | 17.2.2005 | 16:12 
