Flowers, chocolates, diamonds and dinner dates are all perfectly fine, if a bit typical, for a Valentine's Day gift. Far more original is the husband who goes a different route: Booking the most romantic outpatient surgery of all.
That surgery is the vasectomy, and it's what U.N. Population Fund worker Eddie Wright did this year, he said in a Feb. 14 GQ op-ed.
"Chocolate and champagne have their place, but if you're done having kids and want to make a real difference in your partner's life, then how about giving their mind and body a permanent break from the decades-long grind of dealing with contraception, so they can ditch the pills, [intrauterine devices] and injections once and for all?" Mr. Wright said in the op-ed.
Vasectomies are performed under local anesthesia by a urologist. They typically take less than 30 minutes, with patients released home within an hour of the surgery, according to a report published in December in Primary Care: Clinics in Office Practice.
Worldwide, more than 40 million men have undergone a vasectomy, the report said. The U.S. vasectomy rate is fairly high at between eight and 11 percent, though Canada, the U.K., New Zealand and South Korea all have higher rates at between 17 and 22 percent, according to a 2015 report in The Lancet that uses the most recent available data.
The procedure has received more attention lately, with the conservative-majority Supreme Court considering challenges to Roe v. Wade, according to a Dec. 26 report in The Washington Post. More than 20 states are poised to either ban or restrict abortions, depending on what the court decides.
Austin (Texas) Urology Institute's Koushik Shaw, MD, told The Washington Post his practice saw about a 15 percent increase in scheduled vasectomies after the state's Sept. 1 abortion ban went into effect.
For vasectomy advocates, the procedure is a reflection of what Valentine's Day is all about. It's an act of love.