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Leia says that to Tarkin in A New Hope, but the underlying idea is simple: there is a point of diminishing returns to effects to control others, and sometimes, increasing efforts to control others can reduce your net total control.
I think about this a lot, especially when I’m daydreaming about how fantastic it would be if we could create a universal Attaperson system, with the effect that if you are way too obnoxious to your neighbors, we won’t let you buy plane tickets, because no one wants to be in an enclosed space with That Kind of Person. Unfortunately, that kind of social merit system is probably gonna backfire.
Today, however, I am thinking about this issue in a wildly different context. Apparently, after Texas passed its reprehensible early ban on abortion, there was a spike on searches for information about sterilization, and _also_ a spike in people going in to get vasectomies, salpingectomies, and similar, and saying they were doing this because of that reprehensible law.
And not just in Texas, either.
Arguably, I’ve spent far too much of my time and attention for far too much of my life staring at statistics and other information about birth control, efficacy, and how to get people to use it (make it cheap, safe, easy to use and ubiquitous, basically, and have enough of a selection of types to deal with different issues / goals). Sterilization is hilariously unpopular as a form of birth control, typically adopted only after having the total number of children that a woman intends to have. A woman. Which is lunatic, because of course way easier to do this plumbing that is exterior than plumbing that is interior. Government programs pushing vasectomies by offering food or monetary compensation are comical for resulting in doing vasectomies on a bunch of men over the age of 60, 70, whatever.
But apparently, if you ban abortion, a whole wave of people will voluntarily try their damnedest to make it so there’s no chance they will ever contribute to a situation where an abortion might be needed. I gotta say, I love _everything_ about young people these days. They are compassionate, and they show deep foresight and insight.
About half of all pregnancies (in the United States and around the world) are unintended / unplanned, and people who are attempting to reduce the total number of abortions around the world while still preserving reproductive freedom tend to focus on this as the number to drive down as far as possible. I’ve been a little skeptical of this goal for a long time for several reasons, but mostly because I’ve gotten to know a lot of people over the years and I’ve come to realize that a lot of people don’t really plan anything in their lives so trying to get them to plan their family is a much heavier lift than the Do Gooders seem to recognize. Also, there are _lots_ of things that are unplanned in the lives of this disorganized mass of humanity that they love a lot, including their initially unintended but eventually wanted children. I kept thinking, you know, if we could really get a handle on why they are so overwhelmed and disorganized, that would be so much more helpful.
Now, I have a whole new question. Let us imagine a glorious utopia in which everyone who really never wanted to had children could find supportive medical professionals in that effort. This is hard! Because as recently as the birth of my eldest, shit like this was still being published:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC558215/
Of course, the proper response to someone showing up and saying they want to have a vasectomy / tubal ligation / salpingectomy is, please read this description of the risks of this procedure and sign. Assuming they want to go ahead, determine payment and schedule the procedure.
You know, _like any other kind of fucking medical care_.
My question is this. If all the people who are quite certain they never want to have children access sterilization over the next few months / yearish, and continue to do so as they grow to an age to make that decision (and let’s assume we let people make this decision in the manner described above starting at the age they become a legal adult — you can include a paragraph about the risks of regret in the risks associated with this procedure, I’m pretty sure that’s on the list of risks for plastic surgery, for example). (I do recognize that unfortunately there are still children getting pregnant, but I’m leaving them out of this for the moment.) If all the people quite certain they never want to have children access sterilization, what impact would that have on unintended pregnancies / unplanned pregnancies?
And what impact would that have on the total births annually going forward.
I don’t think that _all_ unintended/unplanned pregnancies would go away. Lots of those happen to people who were planning on getting pregnant just not right then. But surely, it would have a significant impact.
I guess we’re about to find out.
ETA:
I should mention that apparently ACOG recommends salpingectomies for people having pelvic surgery who have fallopian tubes that they aren’t planning on ever using again, because it reduces risk of ovarian cancer.
I think about this a lot, especially when I’m daydreaming about how fantastic it would be if we could create a universal Attaperson system, with the effect that if you are way too obnoxious to your neighbors, we won’t let you buy plane tickets, because no one wants to be in an enclosed space with That Kind of Person. Unfortunately, that kind of social merit system is probably gonna backfire.
Today, however, I am thinking about this issue in a wildly different context. Apparently, after Texas passed its reprehensible early ban on abortion, there was a spike on searches for information about sterilization, and _also_ a spike in people going in to get vasectomies, salpingectomies, and similar, and saying they were doing this because of that reprehensible law.
And not just in Texas, either.
Arguably, I’ve spent far too much of my time and attention for far too much of my life staring at statistics and other information about birth control, efficacy, and how to get people to use it (make it cheap, safe, easy to use and ubiquitous, basically, and have enough of a selection of types to deal with different issues / goals). Sterilization is hilariously unpopular as a form of birth control, typically adopted only after having the total number of children that a woman intends to have. A woman. Which is lunatic, because of course way easier to do this plumbing that is exterior than plumbing that is interior. Government programs pushing vasectomies by offering food or monetary compensation are comical for resulting in doing vasectomies on a bunch of men over the age of 60, 70, whatever.
But apparently, if you ban abortion, a whole wave of people will voluntarily try their damnedest to make it so there’s no chance they will ever contribute to a situation where an abortion might be needed. I gotta say, I love _everything_ about young people these days. They are compassionate, and they show deep foresight and insight.
About half of all pregnancies (in the United States and around the world) are unintended / unplanned, and people who are attempting to reduce the total number of abortions around the world while still preserving reproductive freedom tend to focus on this as the number to drive down as far as possible. I’ve been a little skeptical of this goal for a long time for several reasons, but mostly because I’ve gotten to know a lot of people over the years and I’ve come to realize that a lot of people don’t really plan anything in their lives so trying to get them to plan their family is a much heavier lift than the Do Gooders seem to recognize. Also, there are _lots_ of things that are unplanned in the lives of this disorganized mass of humanity that they love a lot, including their initially unintended but eventually wanted children. I kept thinking, you know, if we could really get a handle on why they are so overwhelmed and disorganized, that would be so much more helpful.
Now, I have a whole new question. Let us imagine a glorious utopia in which everyone who really never wanted to had children could find supportive medical professionals in that effort. This is hard! Because as recently as the birth of my eldest, shit like this was still being published:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC558215/
Of course, the proper response to someone showing up and saying they want to have a vasectomy / tubal ligation / salpingectomy is, please read this description of the risks of this procedure and sign. Assuming they want to go ahead, determine payment and schedule the procedure.
You know, _like any other kind of fucking medical care_.
My question is this. If all the people who are quite certain they never want to have children access sterilization over the next few months / yearish, and continue to do so as they grow to an age to make that decision (and let’s assume we let people make this decision in the manner described above starting at the age they become a legal adult — you can include a paragraph about the risks of regret in the risks associated with this procedure, I’m pretty sure that’s on the list of risks for plastic surgery, for example). (I do recognize that unfortunately there are still children getting pregnant, but I’m leaving them out of this for the moment.) If all the people quite certain they never want to have children access sterilization, what impact would that have on unintended pregnancies / unplanned pregnancies?
And what impact would that have on the total births annually going forward.
I don’t think that _all_ unintended/unplanned pregnancies would go away. Lots of those happen to people who were planning on getting pregnant just not right then. But surely, it would have a significant impact.
I guess we’re about to find out.
ETA:
I should mention that apparently ACOG recommends salpingectomies for people having pelvic surgery who have fallopian tubes that they aren’t planning on ever using again, because it reduces risk of ovarian cancer.