Homebirth is often promoted as a way to save healthcare dollars. No hospital use, no medications, no doctor. Unmedicated homebirth costs a lot less than hospital birth (barring complications, of course). Treatment intensity is lower, interventions are fewer, and the mortality rate is only slightly higher.
In the same spirit of cost savings, I suggest unmedicated home vasectomy with licensed home vasectomists!
Think about it:
There are nearly 500,000 vasectomies performed in the US every year.
[pullquote align=”right” color=””]If women can be birth warriors, men can be incised scrotum warriors![/pullquote]
Is it really necessary to use hospitals, surgi-centers or doctors’ offices for a procedure that is nothing but a snip-snip?
Imagine how much money we could save by doing vasectomies at home!
Is it really necessary to use powerful pain medications and sedatives for something that takes 5 minutes? Pain medications are interventions and everyone knows that interventions are bad. Certainly if women are supposed to endure 24 hours of unmedicated labor at home, men can endure a few minutes of having their scrotums cut. If women can be birth warriors, men can be incised scrotum warriors.
Imagine how much money we could save if we just convince men that the pain of vasectomy is “good pain”!
Is it really necessary to have vasectomies done by urologists? Urologists are specialists in pathological urology conditions and men undergoing vasectomy have no urologic disease. Why not have certified lay people do the job? Vasectomies cost up to $2000. Surely certified vasectomists could do the job for $50 or less.
Imagine how much money we could save!
And what’s up with the extensive training demanded of urologists? Why bother when licensed home vasectomists can start on the job after observing 20 vasectomies performed at home on unmedicated men by other licensed home vasectomists? With such a low upfront investment in training, home vasectomists could make a good living charging only $50 per procedure.
Imagine how much money we could save!
Do we really need follow up sperm counts in order to ensure the procedure worked? A follow up sperm count is yet another intervention, and everyone knows interventions are bad. A follow up sperm count that is greater than zero will inevitably lead to a cascade of interventions to address the problem. Better not to know and just see what happens next.
Think of all the money we would save!
Wait, what?
You think it would be inhumane to snip two little cuts in a man’s scrotum without anesthesia? How can that be when a vasectomy is so much less painful than childbirth? Surely men could be taught to be empowered by the pain of vasectomy, just as women are taught to be empowered by the pain of childbirth.
You think it would be barbaric to entrust cutting into man’s scrotum to a lay person with minimal training? How can that be when vasectomy is so much simpler than childbirth and lots of people think that a lay person is an adequate attendant for birth?
You think it would be wrong to forgo a post op sperm count and risk an unwanted pregnancy? How can that be when an unwanted pregnancy is so much less serious than the death of a baby or mother in childbirth and homebirth advocates think those are acceptable since we are saving money?
Here’s what I want to know:
If no one would tolerate an unmedicated home vasectomy for men on the grounds of cost saving, why is anyone promoting unmedicated homebirth for women as a way to save money?
