More men without kids are getting vasectomies, doctors say
CBC
In over 30 years of practice, Dr. Errol Billinkoff rarely saw a man without kids come into his Winnipeg clinic to get a vasectomy. But since the pandemic began, he says it's become an almost daily occurrence.
And he's not alone.
"At first, I thought I was the only one who was noticing this," Billinkoff, who brought a no-scalpel vasectomy procedure to Winnipeg in the early 1990s, told CBC News in a November interview.
"But I am part of an international chat group where doctors who do vasectomies participate and the topic came up, and it's like everybody notices it."
Other Canadian doctors, like Dr. Pierre Boucher in Montreal and Dr. Neil Pollock in Vancouver, perform thousands of vasectomies a year. Both told CBC news they've noticed a similar trend at their practices.
Their observations coincide with Canada's steeply declining fertility rate. In 2023, that rate was 1.26 children born per woman – Canada's lowest on record, according to Statistics Canada.
In 2019, the fertility rate was 1.47.
All three doctors say they've noticed three overarching reasons men who don't have kids give for getting the snip: the economy, climate change and wanting more freedom.
All those things played into Ian Clements's decision to get a vasectomy.
"Even as a teenager, the thought of having kids was just terrifying for me," he told CBC.
But there were other reasons too.
He got the procedure at 30, spurred in part by how difficult it was for his girlfriend at the time to find birth control that worked for her.
"So that was my tipping point. It was kind of helping me help my partner."
Daniel Kinley got his vasectomy earlier this year.
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