Last week seemed to be the week of news outlets endlessly repeating the “isn’t this amusing, vasectomies are up” story. (I’ve noticed this trend more and more in the media of late, the tendency to grab tenaciously to one story and to keep circulating it over and over, presumably because most newspapers lack actual reporting staffs now, so they are forced to pull all their coverage from Reuters.) At any rate, the story got me thinking.

First of all, the framing is deeply flawed. All of the stories are written in a tone which suggests that men are getting vasectomies because of the recession, and they don’t want babies. In fact, no hard statistics are kept on the rate of this relatively simple procedure, so there’s no real way to tell when the rates are increasing. Furthermore, while men may be driven by economic concerns, it may be just as much because they are running out of health coverage and they want to get it taken care of. And, given that the procedure is basically irreversible, I doubt that men who don’t want children right now are leaping into it, because they might want children later.

And could it possibly be that all of our agitating for more equality in handling reproductive choice is finally coming to fruit?

I’ve long been frustrated by the fact that the responsibility for contraception is placed primarily upon women, because it’s annoying, and because it’s fucking expensive. For those of you who happen to not be ciswomen, the plumbing gets pricey to maintain, let me tell you.

If you want any form of prescription birth control (and most women do, because it’s more effective), you have to get an annual exam, which can cost upwards of $200, assuming you also get a basic STI screening with it. If you’re fortunate enough to have access to insurance, your insurance company will probably cover it, but don’t count on it. And, assuming you get a prescription, don’t assume that your insurance will pay for that, because a lot of insurance agencies will not cover birth control. Penis pills, no problem, but birth control, no. And less you think that I’m complaining about a paltry expense, the method I use costs over $800/year.

The only real form of male-controlled birth control available is the condom or the vasectomy, which cuts men out of hormonal birth control options which they might appreciate having. Condoms are relatively cheap when compared to prescription options for women (and women somehow end up bearing the cost more than men anyway), while a vasectomy costs between $500-1,000. If I could go in for a single, low-risk medical procedure which would render me sterile for that cost, I’d be there in a heartbeat. Yet, that option isn’t available to women (although we’re getting closer). Because of the increased complexity of our anatomy, or is there perhaps some other reason, like a desire for more control over women and our bodies? Permanent sterilization is pretty much the ultimate way to take control of your own reproductive system, for those who don’t want to have children.

When the Pill was first marketed to women, it was very male-controlled, right down to the delivery method. Those placebo pills were placed in the pack at behest of men, not out of any real concerns about the potential effects of continuous birth control on long term health. Now, some 40 years later, a handful of companies are marketing products which allow women to control their periods like it’s a big deal, a totally new invention, when in fact the earliest prototypes of the Pill had no placebos, or set up a seasonal menstruation schedule rather than a monthly one, just like that fancy extra expensive designer birth control does today.

I find it fascinating that women are expected to take responsibility for birth control, and that options for women are significantly more expensive, and they can be harder to access. A man who wants a vasectomy can just schedule an appointment and do it. A woman who wants a tubal ligation will have to go to a counselor, and even then, her husband/partner may  have to indicate that he’s ok with it. That’s ludicrous, and insanely antiquated.

In states like California, programs exist to provide reproductive health services to low income women, but many of these programs push sterilization over other methods, which sounds suspiciously like eugenics to me. That’s right, if you’re poor, the state will pay for a tubal ligation! It’s blatantly about keeping poor women from having babies, because women who have been sterilized are no longer eligible for free Pap smears and annual exams to monitor their health; once you can’t pop out any babies, the State doesn’t care. And while it’s great for low income women to be able to access other reproductive health services, that doesn’t really help women in higher income brackets who may still be struggling to cover reproductive health services.

Supposedly, there’s some mythical world in which boyfriends help their girlfriends pay for birth control, and even participate in the discussion about contraceptive methods and responsibility. But most of the women I know who have sex with men say that they are expected to take total responsibility for the whole business, including cost, and some have even told me that their partners still don’t trust them. A simple way to deal with that might be, say, taking responsibility for wrapping your little soldier, but apparently it’s much easier to stand over your girlfriend while she takes her pill to make sure she swallows it.

A small part of me wants to imagine that the alleged and impossible to prove uptick in vasectomies is all about a new generation of socially aware and responsible men who want to take charge of their own contraception. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Street parties are an important part of San Francisco’s culture, but the city isn’t a big fan, and it’s decided to start cracking down. (To be fair, the highly destructive flash mobs in which white members of the upper class descend on a location for an unpermitted and usually extremely messy event are understandably irritating for the city to clean up.)

A rare piece of good news: Angie Zapata’s murderer has been found guilty of first degree murder, which is awesome. More awesome is that the transpanic defense was thrown out.

When former lab workers are accusing an animal research facility of animal cruelty and frivolous experimentation, that’s a pretty good indicator that there’s a problem.

I am creepily fascinated by this series on the history of images of embryos. That might sound kind of dry and boring to you, but it’s actually really, really cool, and there’s a lot of stuff on here.

Uhm, wow. Via Consumerist: a man with hepatitis C was shot in the back. He died. His life insurance refused to pay out, arguing that the hep was a “pre-existing condition.” Now, I think what’s going on here is that the infection wasn’t disclosed, so the insurance is arguing that the terms of the contract were violated, but still…that’s cold, man.

Bad news for Kings: the show has been moved to the summer schedule, which is NBC’s way of saying “no, we are not renewing this.”