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Weekend humor from Celia Rivenbark: The right’s war on abortion leads to a vasectomy boom

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Weekend humor from Celia Rivenbark: The right’s war on abortion leads to a vasectomy boom

Apr 01, 2023 | 8:03 am ET
By Celia Rivenbark
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Weekend humor from Celia Rivenbark: The right’s war on abortion leads to a vasectomy boom

American men are getting vasectomies in record numbers and the reason is as plain as the twin vertical lines on a positive pregnancy test: Last year, the Supreme Court abolished the constitutional right to abortion that had been in place for 50 years, allowing each state to protect, restrict or outright ban abortion.

But wait! There’s more. Recently, Republican attorneys general in 20 states got tired of everyone else having all the fun so they approached Walgreen’s, a drug store that also sells weird clothes and candy that tastes like brake dust and asked them to stop selling the abortion pill. “Asked” in the same way Paulie Walnuts might ask if you’d like to take a ride to the Pine Barrens. Just sayin’.

Walgreen’s, apparently forgetting its corporate commitment to supporting women’s health responded “Okie Dokie” so quickly and decisively it must’ve surprised even the AGs making the ask.

And men began to think: “Bruh. We have a problem.”

It’s hard to find anything positive about the Supreme Court’s remarkably cruel decision last year, setting up a nation of haves and have-nots depending on zip code and, yes, bank account but watching men, for the first time ever, taking the lead on birth control may be the one bright spot.

The boys have manned-up out of necessity, to be sure, but we’ll take it. Next thing you know, they’re going to start putting that dirty plate in the dishwasher instead of the sink and asking if they can watch “Emily in Paris” with us.

Not everyone is doing this of course. I mean, Lauren Boebert’s 17-year-old son just announced he’s going to be a daddy with the same bluster as LeBron taking his talents to South Beach years ago. Meanwhile Mama Boebert is gushing about being such a young, hip (holster) grandma. Don’t blame Boebert’s clueless son. When your mama is one of the loudest, numbskullest voices against sex education in schools you pretty much grow up thinking eating too much applesauce could make a girl pregnant.

The Boebert baby news forced me to recall Sarah Palin, whose daughter also had an out-of-wedlock baby at age 17 while, at the same time, being the face of her mother’s abstinence-only teen pregnancy prevention campaign. Apparently a mostly moose diet significantly hampers one’s understanding of irony.

I’m not hating on these two (very) young parents. I’m just doubled over laughing at the hypocrisy of their (blech) mama grizzlies as they lecture a puzzled electorate about the need for traditional morals and values. Just shut up.

The Great Vasectomy Movement of 2023 is real. Men as young as 22 are storming into their urologist’s office, emerging one simple surgical procedure later with post-op advice to have some frozen peas at the ready.

It’s exactly like my hysterectomy. OK, it’s NOTHING like it which is fortunate or this whole taking responsibility through minor surgery thing would be dead on arrival. (“You’re going to do WHAT to my WHAT?”)

This is so not how this was supposed to go. I mean, none of those folks marching with their pro-life signs imagined so many men would have the triscuits to take care of business so quietly and efficiently. Surely, they’re scratching their noggins and trying to figure out how to slut-shame a 28-year-old man who knows he never wants to be a father. The old playbook isn’t going to work here. You can’t even snipe about his provocative clothing because, looky here, it’s Carhartt.

Vasectomies are up as much as 400 percent in the red states, and it’s easy to see why. Take South Carolina where 21 members of the state legislature back a bill that would make abortion punishable by the death penalty. Yes. The death penalty. Because life is so sacred, y’all. OK, so maybe it isn’t the moose meat.

Weekend humor from Celia Rivenbark: The right’s war on abortion leads to a vasectomy boom
Celia Rivenbark is a NYT-bestselling author and columnist. Write her at [email protected].