Free Vasectomy Appointments in Oklahoma Filled Up in Less Than 48 Hours

Looks like a lot of men in Oklahoma want to get snipped: When Planned Parenthood Great Plains announced a free vasectomy clinic last week on Facebook, the post was shared 6,000 times, and all the spots filled up in less than 48 hours. It’s not exactly surprising to see this from a state that has banned abortions and made headlines for pregnant women almost dying or spending thousands to travel to another state with a nonviable pregnancy.

Emily Wales, the CEO of PPGP, told the Oklahoma Voice that the two-day October clinic is the launch of vasectomy services at the Oklahoma City health center. Over the summer, Planned Parenthood Great Plains started offering vasectomies at its Tulsa clinic, about 100 miles away, and that location has a waitlist.

“Vasectomy is not something that’s often available to people who have few resources, often cost is a barrier,” Wales told KFOR. “It has meant that we have had a whole lot of people wanting to get in.” She added that patients have “concerns about government overreach,” so for some people that means they’re looking at long-term contraception. “It has been very clear from the outpouring of requests and the waitlist that we need to be back doing more vasectomy more frequently [in Oklahoma City],” Wales said.

Other medical providers are seeing the demand, too. Oklahoma City urologist Basel Hassoun told the Oklahoma Voice that, before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, he did three or four vasectomies per month—now it’s three or four every week. Hassoun said his patients are trending older, too: It used to be men in their 30s and now it’s mostly men in their 40s and 50s who don’t want to risk their partner getting pregnant. (It’s true that people shouldn’t have to make medical decisions they feel forced into due to state laws—it’s a form of reproductive coercion—but the grim reality is they’re just trying to protect themselves.)

Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis region is also offering free vasectomies in October, and its Facebook post announcing the no-scalpel vasectomy clinic was shared more than 400 times. A spokesperson for PPSLR told Jezebel that all 100 spots across three health centers were snapped up in less than two weeks.

Planned Parenthood is launching the service at clinics in Mishawaka, Indiana, (another state where abortion is banned) and Portland, Maine. Abortion is legal there, but Dr. Andrea Pelletier told a local news outlet that patients have been asking to get the snip. “There’s a real lack of access in our community,” she said. “Some other local urology practices are booking out several months if not up to a year, year-and-a-half to get a vasectomy.”

Not all insurance plans cover vasectomies and that is a travesty that leads to the outpouring of demand for free clinics. Hey Dark Brandon, can you get on that next?

This story has been updated with comment from PPSLR.