This Holiday Season, Treat Your Man to ‘The Nutcracker’—AKA the Vasectomy Van

It’s been a long year of women losing reproductive freedom, so this holiday season, give that special man in your life the gift that keeps on giving—a vasectomy that guarantees he won’t impregnate you.

In honor of World Vasectomy Day, Dr. Esgar Guarin, a physician in Iowa, is taking his mobile sperm clinic on the road to offer free and discounted vasectomies to the uninsured for the month of November, according to the Associated Press.

“It’s a very particular moment in reproductive rights in the United States. And we need to talk about it,” Guarin told the AP, adding that his friends nicknamed his van “The Nutcracker.”

Guarin sits on the medical advisory board of World Vasectomy Day, which takes place on November 18. (Just in time for Thanksgiving! Plan and celebrate accordingly and you’ll be able to fuck off those turkey calories without being worried about making a little turkey of your own.) He was motivated to offer his services in other states due to both the fall of Roe v. Wade and the effort’s popularity from last year—when he took his van to New York City.

Clinics and doctors’ offices across the U.S. have reported huge increases in patients searching, inquiring, and scheduling vasectomies since the fall of Roe. During the first week of November, Guarin’s van will offer 60 free vasectomies outside three Planned Parenthood clinics in Missouri. Afterward, Guarin said he would offer 40 more free ones in Iowa, as well as discounted ones at his Des Moines clinic throughout November.

“I feel like that, with the extreme cost involved with having a child in the United States, I kind of got priced out,” Denny Dalliance, a 31-year-old in Missouri who’ll be getting a vasectomy in November, told the AP. “And so this is me cashing out my chips as it were. It’s the right ethical decision for me, but it’s not one that’s made lightly.”

Vasectomies are easier to perform than the female equivalent of sterilization and are often reversible. The procedure is also generally easier, cheaper, and only requires local anesthesia.

In May, following the Supreme Court’s leaked draft opinion that revealed they were planning to overturn Roe, Google searches for vasectomies were up 250 percent, according to data from Innerbody Research. In July, Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri performed 42 vasectomies. They only performed 10 in July the previous year. The organization told the AP that there’d been a 53 percent increase over the past 100 days of visitors searching for vasectomy information on their national website.

“I think people are afraid, No. 1, about abortion not being accessible, which is a very real and legitimate fear and in the reality for a large part of folks in our country,” Dr. Margaret Baum, the Planned Parenthood medical director for the St. Louis region, told the AP. “And then I think people are also really afraid that what else might be next.”

The Supreme Court may have overruled a woman’s right to choose, but at least men still have the right to choose a vasectomy. For now.