U.S. is seeing a sharp increase in the number of sterilizations as a means of contraception, according to a study published Friday.
Since the Supreme Court of the United States overturned the constitutional protection of the right to abortion in 2022, around twenty American states have banned or severely restricted access to abortion. The issue of abortion has since become a central theme of the presidential campaign which pits Republican Donald Trump against outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden. Donald Trump “wants to take America back to the 1800s” when it comes to abortion, Kamala Harris notably attacked on Friday during a trip to Arizona, where the courts have just ruled that an almost total ban on abortion is applicable, 160 years old. The number of vasectomies among men returned to previous trends, while the rate of tubal ligations among women continued to increase more rapidly than before the Supreme court's decision. However, sterilization procedures are much more complex and two to six times more expensive for women than for men, the study authors point out.