Seymour and her husband, Adam Sylvester, met in college, fell in love, and got married. They both want to be police officers, but Sylvester, currently a security guard, is planning to stay home with their kids until they reach day-care age while Seymour works. Having their children early was always the plan — "I want to be young with them," explains Sylvester. "I want to run in the park with them, stuff like that." But so was stopping at two.

Currently five months pregnant, Seymour asked her OB/GYN, Dr. Kayode Ayodele, to perform a tubal ligation concurrently with her planned Caesarean section. Dr. Ayodele replied, "No."

And Seymour is understandably irate. "I thought we could make our own decision, with some guidance, not have the decision made for us," said Seymour. "We know what we want in life: we want two kids and then we want to start our careers. We had logical reasons behind it. He should have listened and respected that." Through her primary care physician, Seymour is still looking for an OB/GYN willing to sterilize her — but because of her age, she's been told it's a tough ask.

Young women are often discriminated against when seeking sterilization. Many doctors ask offensive questions ("What if you met a billionaire who wanted to have kids with you?"), state categorically that their patients are too young to consider the surgery, and generally act as though, as one woman who tried unsuccessfully to be sterilized at the age of 21 in the U.K. put it, "just because I was a woman, I'd reach a point where an urge to breed would overcome all rational thought." (Perhaps unsurprisingly, that woman's 25-year-old husband faced no such presumptions when he asked his doctor for a vasectomy. The procedure was quickly approved.)

Why is the choice to take any lingering contraceptive ambiguity out of one's life met with such scorn by so many in the medical establishment? Why does society at large indulge in the sexist, ageist assumption that young women aren't capable of making this particular decision? (Representative line from the two women journalists who wrote for the Daily Fail about women under 30 who've been sterilized: "While some might think it strange to celebrate the reversal of nature and denial of motherhood, Toni relishes her decision with an almost religious zeal.")

"I find it incredibly patronizing," says Sue McGarvie, an Ottawa sex therapist.

Tarrah Seymour, who is educated, in a stable relationship, and obviously not one of those child-free freaks of nature the Fail is harping on, makes a very sympathetic case for being allowed the surgery she desires. But the point is everyone should have their basic right to make decisions regarding their bodies and their health without unnecessary interference from the government or the medical establishment — regardless of sex, marital status, or age. The right to make our own medical decisions is something women have fought long and hard for; it need hardly be pointed out that this is a right men have long enjoyed without any questioning.

Unfortunately, with people like Montreal OB/GYN Cleve Ziegler running around saying numb-skulled things like, "Any wise, experienced gynecologist will turn down a young woman seeking a tubal ligation," these attitudes don't seem likely to change. Continued Ziegler, "We've all seen that woman who had two kids, had her tubes tied at 28, and at 29 [has] a new boyfriend and wants it reversed." How nice to know that Dr. Ziegler, like Dr. Ayodele, treats his every female patient as though she were that hormone-addled lizard-brained lady creature of medical myth, instead of an individual in need.

Doctors Deny Mom's Tubal Ligation [CNews]
Meet The Women Who Won't Have Babies — Because They're Not Eco-Friendly [Daily Mail]
Tying The Knot [Macleans]
Female Hysteria [Wikipedia]

Earlier: Having Kids: Sometimes The Answer Is Just "No"
Dudes Frightened Of Duplicitous, Kid-Coveting Women Are Opting For Vasectomies

Jamie didn't want surgery, but when she heard about the less invasive Essure, a metal coil that creates scar tissue in the fallopian tubes, she was intrigued. She did a lot of research, especially on post-sterilization regret, which for young women seems to be greatest if you've already had children. Then she met with a doctor who she feared would turn her away because of her age. He did ask her a lot of questions (including the rather offensive, "What if you met a billionaire who wanted to have kids with you?"), but he eventually approved her for the procedure.

I drove her to the appointment and waited at the clinic while she had the device inserted. I won't say it wasn't a weird experience — the clinic also did cosmetic surgery, so it was kind of a palace, and I sat there reading Vogue while my friend got screws shoved up her reproductive organs. For her part, she says it didn't hurt at all. They did have to dilate her cervix and pump her uterus full of water, so she came out a little nauseous and tired, but in good spirits.

The real fallout came when she told her parents. Her mom cried, and asked why she couldn't "just let her life unfold" the way other people did. Up to that point I'd been totally on board with Jamie's decision, but her mom's tears gave me a twinge of doubt. I wondered if I'd helped her carry out a choice she'd later regret.

But Jamie tells me she doesn't even think of it as a choice. When a gay friend of hers found out about her parents' reaction, he told her it sounded a lot like coming out. She was revealing "an important fact about who she was, that couldn't be changed, and her parents didn't want to accept it." She believes the desire not to have children can be something innate, as basic as the urge to procreate. On the question of kids, she says, "sometimes the answer is just no."

Her parents aren't the only ones who disapprove. Even the nurse at the clinic assumed Jamie was "done having kids," and was taken aback when Jamie explained that zero was enough for her. Jamie says most people see not wanting kids as a function of youth, not a deeply held conviction. When I asked how she felt about explaining her sterilization to people, she told me this: "Does it need to be defended? No. But people will feel entitled to an explanation, and you can get mad about that, or you can think of something to say." Which seems pretty good way to think about any big decision in your life, especially if it sets you apart from what people think of as normal.

*Not her real name.