TAMPA, Fla. — Thomas Figueroa of Tampa is your average 27-year-old man who enjoys EDM festivals and dabbles in fire dancing.
He's also been sure for a long time that he doesn't want kids.
"I've always had classmates, as young as middle school, who were getting pregnant. I found that I had to think about pregnancy a little younger than I thought I was going to have to be," Figueroa said.
Getting a vasectomy has been in the back of his mind for a long time, and when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the idea became front of his mind.
"I always had abortion in the back of my mind, and honestly at this point, I just see that as selfish. There are a lot of things I can do for myself. I can do the vasectomy and be done with it, and we don't have to do any kind of birth control. It's just as much our responsibility as theirs," Figueroa said.
He booked an appointment with Dr. Doug Stein, who practices in Lutz, and he's not the only one to do so.
In his nearly 40 years as a urologist, Stein said he's never seen anything like the recent spike in vasectomy registrations at his clinic.
"I've never seen a social change, political change, that caused a change in the numbers of vasectomies like the Roe v. Wade overturn," he said.
Stein said the number of men registering for vasectomies at his clinic tripled compared to previous weeks.
Most surprising to him was that the number of appointments from men under 30 with no children has more than doubled in recent weeks as well.
"The overwhelming story is they've been thinking of this for a long time... and this Roe overturn was just the thing that tipped [them] over," Stein said.
Their reasoning, in part, stems from concern over future law changes, like the banning of contraception, according to Stein.
Figueroa shares that concern and said this is also about taking ownership.
"If I'm going to impregnate someone, it's just as much my responsibility as it is their responsibility," he said.
Stein reminds men who may be considering a vasectomy that the reversal procedure is not always effective, and it's a decision that should not be made lightly.
According to his website, as of November 2019, Stein has performed more than 45,000 vasectomies and 1,750 reversals.