The Southwest Ohio Region Planned Parenthood has added vasectomies to its list of services

In January 2024, Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region added a new service to its health practice: vasectomies.

Maya McKenzie, communications manager for the Southwest Ohio Region, says Planned Parenthood had been tracking vasectomy services as an anticipated need in the region, but weren’t seeing the feedback that would constitute incorporating the service until the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the United States Supreme Court in 2022.

“After that, there was a huge boom across the board for folks wanting to learn more, inquire more and access more birth control and sex education services,” McKenzie says. “We felt that stepping up and offering the service was kind of bridging that newfound need of folks wanting to preemptively prepare themselves to take charge of their own bodies and autonomy now that certain forms of access felt like they were going to be restricted in a way that we hadn’t seen before.”

In November 2023, Ohio passed Issue 1, which declared an individual’s right to “make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions,” which passed with a 57% majority. Though this was passed, it did not repeal any existing Ohio abortion laws, which include a ban on abortion at 22 weeks or later or at viability.

Part of Issue 1 passing was also about privacy in health care and bodily autonomy, which includes birth control, IUD and other forms of contraceptive, and how people can access those services.

“It’s no secret that the onus of birth control has been on women since kind of the dawn and [conception] of birth control, unnecessarily,” she says. “Especially when procedures like this exists, and if you are a person with a penis that is wanting to engage in sex, but you don’t have any intention of ever having a child or going down that route, then vasectomy is a really easy procedure.”

McKenzie says that it takes a couple hours to plan, show up, have the procedure done and leave. A vasectomy can also help alleviate some of that pressure from those that don’t intend to have children.

“Since Roe fell in 2022, there’s been an uptick in folks…that have felt responsibility in how they can themselves enter into the conversation of birth control and safe and effective contraception,” McKenzie says. “We certainly encourage anyone that feels like [vasectomies] are a good opportunity for them to do so, especially if that is a better option for any partnership or situation that they’re involved in.”

Though it is a commonly held idea that vasectomies are reversible, they are permanent, and only can be reversed in a small number of cases. It is important to be 100% sure about the procedure before moving forward.

“We want to give the full spectrum of folks we serve the option and access to all forms of health care that make them feel like they have agency in their own lives,” she says. “This was another way that we could service folks and make them feel like they have their own choice and decision in these kinds of matters.”

Since the addition of its vasectomy service, Planned Parenthood has been met with “overwhelming excitement.” McKenzie acknowledges that this reaction is due to the fact that access in this area has not been “equitable” for those without health insurance and those who would be turned away if they didn’t have it. “Being able to offer [these services] is really exciting for people in the community that maybe otherwise wouldn’t have been able to access it,” she adds.

“While folks do have access to abortion care if and when they ever need it, there are a lot of folks that are much more interested in making sure that they can access contraceptive care for a range of reasons, both for pregnancy prevention and period management,” McKenzie says.

While abortion care is protected, it doesn’t necessarily alleviate the need for birth control, she adds.

Ohio does not have standardized comprehensive sex-education requirement, so a lot of people are learning much later in life about their options as far as birth control and safe sex practices. Planned Parenthood takes on some of the responsibility of education. “It matters to us that folks in Ohio have both access and knowledge about their options,” McKenzie says.

Though Planned Parenthood has fallen under scrutiny, McKenzie emphasizes that at its core, it is a health care clinic and puts the needs of its patients first.

“Whatever a person needs to make their own best informed health care decision is what we want,” McKenzie says. “Whatever that choice is, is not ours to make. Equitable and accessible health care is for everyone, no matter who you are. We’re here for everyone and anyone no matter what.”