Women Are Getting Sterilized After Donald Trump's Victory: 'Only Option'
Source: Newsweek
Published Nov 30, 2024 at 4:00 AM EST
It's not a procedure you'd expect a 28-year-old to be planning. But for Lydia Echols from Texas, having her fallopian tubes removed is the price she's willing to pay to ensure her reproductive rights. Newsweek spoke to five women who have either undergone sterilization procedures or plan to in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump's victory on November 5.
They all expressed fear their reproductive choices will be taken from them under Trump's administration. "If I am to be denied any rights in the next four (or more) years, I will not give them up without a fight," Echols said. Newsweek has contacted Trump's transition team, via email, for comment.
Last week, a 39-year-old from Washington state, who did not want to be named, underwent a bilateral salpingectomy, in which her fallopian tubes were removed. "I am not happy that I felt forced into a surgery I did not want to alter my body, I feel like the election tied my hands and forced me to be sterilized—that is horrible," she told Newsweek.
The issue of abortion and reproductive rights was a major one in this year's election. Trump, who took credit for the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, removing the constitutional right to an abortion in the country, has repeatedly said that his position is to let the states decide their own abortion laws.
Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/women-sterilized-donald-trump-abortion-1993261
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CousinIT
(10,485 posts)I have a family member who had it done in her 20s - back then, it was in the 1980s, and she heard all the Christofascists / Christian Taliban rumbling way back then that they were going to overturn Roe, ban contraceptives and no-fault divorce. She wanted no part of it and didn't want kids, so - snip, snip, and it was done.
She hasn't regretted it one bit, she tells me.
multigraincracker
(34,324 posts)Get a vasectomy and freeze some samples. Less invasive for men and cheaper.
BWdem4life
(2,502 posts)
ShazzieB
(18,925 posts)I am ALL FOR men getting snipped if they don't want kids, believe me, but I am also ALL FOR women taking care of themselves in the current legal and political climate.
Even if a woman is in a relationship she believes to be completely monogamous with a man who has had a vasectomy, she'll be back to square one if that relationship doesn't last (and let's face it, many don't). The only sure way to protect herself, especially in a state like Texas, where the risks are so high, is to get the snip herself.
It sucks that women are bring forced into this, but do what you need to do, ladies (and gents, and enbys)!
What worries me is the possibility of state legislators in red states enacting laws against sterilizing women under a certain age. I wouldn't put it past them; after all, the people who vote in draconian abortion bans are not fans of birth control, either. Which, come to think of it, is one more reason to get snipped while you still can!
liberalla
(10,089 posts)It would be difficult to ensure every male sexual partner I may have, has had a vasectomy. Also there's no way to ensure a rapist has been snipped.
I would feel more in control, choosing to avoid pregnancy, by sterilization. With this one procedure, I'm protected in every situation that may arise. I acknowledge this wouldn't be ideal for many women. The fact that it's becoming more acceptable indicates how desperate women are to control and prevent a possible pregnancy.
multigraincracker
(34,324 posts)I see the world as way overpopulated. I feel 3 billion is the max to save the planet. 1/3 of what we now have.
As a male without children at age 50 at the time I couldn’t find a doctor to do it. Then I went to Planned Parenthood and had no problem getting it. Plus it was very affordable.
travelingthrulife
(946 posts)It really hasn't hit most men that this will impact THEM and their families. Most of the women that I know in traditional marriages are the primary breadwinner. That paycheck won't be there if she is stuck home with babies/pregnancy.
Marthe48
(19,323 posts)It is too bad that women are forced to undergo a surgical procedure to maintain a semblance of bodily autonomy.
Susan Faludi authored a book titled Backlash, The Undeclared War Against Women
In that book, she wrote about a chemical plant in WV who would hire women only if they would get hysterectomies. The plant is across the river and upstream from my Ohio town. When I read that book in the 90s, I thought it was chilling that women had to agree to such a despotic demand just to get a job.
It was never about the fetus.
BlueSky3
(716 posts)found it too depressing to finish reading it. But I never doubted what Faludi said.
bucolic_frolic
(47,586 posts)Women, men, doctors, lawyers won't want to touch the subject.
Keeping your pants on keeps you out of trouble, away from MAGAts, and out of court.
AZ8theist
(6,555 posts)As well as an increase in poor women of color forced to have children. Exact opposite of what the white supremacists want.
Good work, Nazis. Good work.
BlueSky3
(716 posts)to begin with. 77% of low income women who have unplanned children will then live in poverty. It’s a hole that’s very hard to dig out of.
travelingthrulife
(946 posts)of ending abortion. "Your body, our choice" Do they just plan to rape their way to supremacy?
AZ8theist
(6,555 posts)I applaud the women who are getting sterilized. A radical decision, for sure, but if we end up in a "Handmaid" distopia, their choice to protect themselves is justified.
Incidentally, it's already happening. In Texas ALONE 26,000 cases:
https://abc13.com/texas-abortion-law-no-exceptions-for-rape-rape-related-pregnancies-roe-v-wade-overturned/14359073/
Marthe48
(19,323 posts)For men and women of reproductive age, it's like living in territory occupied by the enemy. Even if you thought you'd have children, you have to weigh so many consequences
I hate what the rwnj have turned this country into.
FredGarvin
(587 posts)Sheer nonsense.
Jordan King?
Women getting sterilized to preserve their reproductive rights?
WTF?
news weak
paleotn
(19,531 posts)Include preventable death. You do understand that, right? Right? 
reACTIONary
(6,157 posts)..... some sort of movement or trend? Pretty lame.
raising2moredems
(714 posts)Both I think. Go back and read articles over the last 2 1/2 years.
And ladies, telling the doctor you'd "rather be dead than pregnant" helps drive the point that you are damn sure of your decision. My doctor (small insurance network) said "I usually have the husband come in but you seem pretty sure". I'm like, you think you f-ing moron?
cadoman
(968 posts)For those trapped in this orange Handmaid Tale dystopia dictatorship, where women are forced to breed and obey their designated MAGAT rapists. 
Not everyone can afford safety. Some of us will be trapped in here--particularly those in red insane asylums. We will train our flesh skeletons into MAGAT destruction machines and fight to the last breath for Democracy. 
travelingthrulife
(946 posts)
Lonestarblue
(11,983 posts)It is Democratic women who are choosing not to have children, while many Republican women are choosing to have more children. Imagine a decade during which fewer children are being raised with democratic values and more children are being raised with racism, bigotry, and misogyny. We are already divided as a nation, with about a 50-50 split. If many liberals choose not to have children, those who want a totalitarian Christian nation will have a much larger majority in not so many years.
From The Guardian:
“Like developed countries around the world, the United States is in the midst of a fertility slump. In 2023, the US fertility rate fell by 3% and reached a historic low.
But this decline is not evenly distributed across the political spectrum. After Trump won the presidency in 2016, births in Republican-leaning counties rose sharply compared to those that leaned Democratic. Today, Democrats are likelier than Republicans to be childfree – a trend that, the Washington Post has hypothesized, is likely also related to the rightward drift of big-family white Protestants.
That the outcome of the 2024 election has spurred such fear and hesitation around having children is apt – not only are US political parties on diverging paths when it comes to babies, but the election itself was in many ways a referendum on families and fertility. While Kamala Harris made support for abortion rights a key plank in her platform, Donald Trump promised “baby booms” and pledged to give people “baby bonuses”. Trump’s vice-president-elect, JD Vance, has built his political brand on pronatalism, a movement that urges people to have babies to benefit the greater good. Vance has a track record of deriding “childless cat ladies” and raising the alarm about the US fertility rate.
Snip
M, a Texan mother of three who asked to go by her first initial because she feels stigmatized for voting for Trump, hopes that Trump’s victory will improve the economy to the point that she and her husband can afford to have a fourth child.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/30/family-planning-trump
IzzaNuDay
(688 posts)wanting to have a fourth child? She better hope it is an uncomplicated pregnancy, and she has OBGYN care. After all, she is in TX!
BWdem4life
(2,502 posts)paleotn
(19,531 posts)Last edited Sat Nov 30, 2024, 05:46 PM - Edit history (1)
The Guardian hasn't discovered some new phenomenon. This has been going on for a while now, yet fundigelical religion continues to decline, and the Nones increase with every census.
https://www.npr.org/2024/01/24/1226371734/religious-nones-are-now-the-largest-single-group-in-the-u-s
raising2moredems
(714 posts)the 1960s are prime example of kids dumping the parental unit's thinking. A lot of them became dinks too.
NickB79
(19,662 posts)
Aristus
(68,618 posts)For most right-wingers out there more children is going to mean almost insurmountable poverty. A poor kid born in a tar-paper shack rising to the Presidency makes for a good story. But that’s not really how it works anymore. You’re going to see an increase in right-wing meth cookers and dealers, used pickup truck salesmen, and useless layabouts living on public benefits. But not Presidential candidates.
Democrats keeping their families small will increase the money available for education, public service internships, private sector internships, political networking, and so on.
cadoman
(968 posts)The DoE (Education, not Energy) is critical because it's our chance to save children from MAGAT irrationality and abuse.
The DoE gives kids a life raft of secular sanity until they reach 18 years and can safely be boarded to college--where most of them will then be safely grounded into reality.
malthaussen
(17,786 posts)Having them removed demonstrates zero confidence in the future, which is understandable.
-- Mal
harumph
(2,399 posts)You are correct. Getting the tubes tied is reversible - but it still works reliably to prevent conception. It is a more
flexible option that leaves open the ability to conceive naturally - if the political environment in the future is better.
Of course the individual in the OP may just not want any children period. Ever. If that's the case though, that is
the choice of one individual and to frame it as "no other choice" or whatever is misleading.
on edit: I also wonder who is advising these women - most gynos would suggest tying the tubes.
Ursus Arctos
(58 posts)some recent research suggests tubal ligation is not quite as effective as once thought with a failure rate of 3-5% .
Pregnancies that do occur are also more likely to be ectopic and we know how that's been working out for women.
https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2024/08/428281/what-are-chances-youll-get-pregnant-after-tubal-ligation
BonnieJW
(2,605 posts)Ursus Arctos
(58 posts)info. I didn't know that.
It always reliably reversible?
coffeenap
(3,220 posts)My sister in law had hers tied-13 years later, surprise, became pregnant and had a healthy child. No moralizing, just truth.
Demobrat
(9,947 posts)Of course the male doctors refused because I would change my mind. I didn’t. Im glad it’s available for them. Once the Pukes catch on elective sterilization for women will suddenly be very hard to get.
Ursus Arctos
(58 posts)experience in my twenties. Doctors insisted I would "change my mind." I never did.
Rebl2
(14,949 posts)that had three kids and didn’t want anymore. Her doctor refused to do it. It was a Catholic hospital.
Karma13612
(4,707 posts)Ligation in the 80’s when I was in my late 20’s and the doc said nope. I knew I didn’t want kids and I never did.
I hope women get the procedure done. They can freeze eggs if that’s financially feasible and then have a baby later if they change their mind!
Demobrat
(9,947 posts)how many women who were able to have it done when they wanted it regretted it. I’d bet not many.
Karma13612
(4,707 posts)DFW
(56,896 posts)More like NEGATE their reproductive rights.
That’s like doing to your body what self-censoring was in the socialist countries here before the Soviet Union collapsed. If a woman is going to resort to a drastic move of that magnitude, I’d move to a civilized state before I’d let the likes of Greg Abbott convince me to voluntarily destroy my nature-given fertility.
Demobrat
(9,947 posts)“Preserve my right to not reproduce”.
chowder66
(9,885 posts)snip....(um, er)
Decreasing Cancer Risk with Tubal Sterilization
For years, it has been noted that tubal sterilization decreased the risk of some types of ovarian cancer by 30% to 50%. Now, that's significant. Now, we're getting to the main topic of this little podcast. The lifetime risk of ovarian cancer in the U.S. is about 1.3 out of 100 women. Ovarian cancer is particularly deadly because it spreads early, and we don't have any early detection methods the way we do with breast cancer, like a mammogram, or cervical cancer with a Pap smear. Ovarian cancer comes in different types, but one of the most common types, serous ovarian cancer, may often actually arise in the end of the fallopian tube near the ovary. For this reason, women who have genetically-linked risks of ovarian cancer, such as the BRCA1 and 2 mutations with familial breast and ovarian cancer, are recommended to have their ovaries and their fallopian tubes removed when they finished having their families.
Recent studies have suggested that women who are planning a tubal sterilization who have their tubes completely removed have about a 60% reduction in the risk of these serous ovarian cancers compared to women who didn't have a tubal sterilization or women who just had part of their tubes removed at tubal ligation.
Pros and Cons of Ligation vs. Sterilization
Now, there are other advantages to having the entire tube removed if a woman is planning a tubal sterilization. Tubal ligations have a known failure rate, a pregnancy after the procedure of as much as 3 to 5 pregnancies per 100 women over 10 years who had their tubal sterilization at the time other than when the baby was delivered, with laparoscopy. Women who had their tubes completely removed have a much lower failure rate, almost zero. Women who have a tubal ligation also have an increased risk of ectopic pregnancy or tubal pregnancy if they do become pregnant compared to women who've had their tubes removed completely.
more at link
https://healthcare.utah.edu/the-scope/health-library/all/2020/09/tubal-ligation-or-tubal-removal-which-procedure-right-me
Evolve Dammit
(19,062 posts)
Upthevibe
(9,249 posts)I had my only child when I had just turned 18 years old. It was with my childhood sweetheart and later my husband (now my ex-husband).
My son had a number of issues: ADHD, a learning disability (similar to Dyslexia), and later was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. When he was a toddler there were many, many nights when he would only sleep about three hours.
My husband and I separated when he was around 2 1/2. Throughout his childhood I was sometimes working three jobs to pay for his tutoring, his therapy, and his other special needs. It was a NIGHTMARE.
During my 20's I had two abortions - the pill didn't work for me and and IUD that had been inserted fractured and I ended up in an emergency room. Sooooooooooo at 28 y.o. I got my tubes tied. I had to go to three different doctors until I finally found someone (this was in the 80's) who would do it.
It's one of the best decisions I ever made. I can't imagine trying to raise another child in addition to the one I had.
BumRushDaShow
(144,203 posts)
I have always had concerns about IUDs, although they are probably one of the most ancient forms of birth control. I can imagine if something happens with an IUD in a woman living in one of those draconian states, they literally could die from an infection or hemorrhaging if the state's law forces doctors to refuse to treat her.
Demobrat
(9,947 posts)Too many women I knew had serious issues from them.
FakeNoose
(36,003 posts)Yes, having one's tubes tied or getting a complete hysterectomy IS an option, but it's not the ONLY one.
lostnfound
(16,714 posts)FakeNoose
(36,003 posts)
Ursus Arctos
(58 posts)Project 2025 advocates for a national ban on medication abortion by urging the FDA to reverse its approval of mifepristone and misoprostol.
Project 2025 also urges the DOJ to criminalize mailing of medication abortion pills via enforcement of the Comstock Act. If Comstock were enforced in this way, it could ultimately be manipulated to ban mailing of anything used for abortion. This could amount to a nationwide ban on all abortions, considering that nearly everything that’s used in an abortion, from speculums to anesthetics to pain medications, is sent through the mail.
ForgoTheConsequence
(4,929 posts)The next two years are going to be tough. The guardrails are gone.
travelingthrulife
(946 posts)you have not been paying attention. Since we are all so free to just move away from fascism to a state without fascism. What happens when your job moves you to a state with fascism?
avebury
(11,083 posts)illegal surgery or force women to get permission to have the procedure. They can't allow women to have the right to free will over their bodies and lives.
madville
(7,479 posts)Like the one in Washington State, nothing has or will be done there to limit options. Doubt there are 50 votes in the Senate to get anything more restrictive done at the federal level either.
Unwind Your Mind
(2,162 posts)I don’t feel so confident about that
Would you be willing to bet your life on it?
travelingthrulife
(946 posts)Lots of backward MAGA there. In short, things can change quickly as we just found out.
TBF
(34,748 posts)I don't trust this incoming administration any further than I can throw them.
I don't think Trump gives a flying f*** about this issue on it's face, but he does care that the fundamentalists support him, so he will do their bidding as he did with Roe. For years people said "it will never happen - they will never overturn Roe", until they did. I live in Texas and I can assure you the church ladies will not stop until there is a federal ban on abortion.
I wouldn't be so sure that he can't overturn what the states want. The Supreme Court has already given him enormous immunity. What's to stop him?
ForgoTheConsequence
(4,929 posts)But I fear nothing is off the table.
The Grand Illuminist
(1,700 posts)There has to be more, much more.
coffeenap
(3,220 posts)had hers removed two years ago. She worked in isolated places in various states and decided to never deal with unwanted pregnancy. The physical and legal danger were too much to contemplate.