There's a disturbing trend in much of the developed world, including not only the Western world but also places like China, Japan, and even parts of the Middle East: People aren't having children. That would be a startling notion for anyone pulled bodily out of the 1970s, when some were all aflutter over the notion of a population explosion resulting in mass famine. Instead, we have a global population that is expected to peak in the next few decades, then start to decline.
The nations of Europe are among the worst in this demographic crisis, as is evidenced in the United Kingdom in the numbers of young men opting out of fatherhood, and in the cultural trend toward favoring vasectomies, even among men in their 20s.
With steady regularity, news items appear in mainstream publications discussing male sterilisation or, in the conveniently obscure medical jargon, vasectomies. Although “discussing” is a stretch: despite the obligatory caveats about pain and permanence, the tone is uniformly affirmative. In July of this year, an article on BBC News ran under the headline: ‘Why I don’t regret choosing a vasectomy in my 20s.’ In May, a Guardian headline read: ‘My first thought after having a vasectomy: why aren’t more men having them?’ The Independent topped them both: ‘Why getting a vasectomy has made me feel more of a man.’ Critical commentary, to the extent that it can be found, is tucked away in harmless Christian corners of the internet.
Now, full disclosure: There are cases where a vasectomy is the best option. I should know; I'm one of them. When our youngest daughter was born, almost three months early, there were about six weeks where we weren't sure she was going to live (she's fine; she's now 30 years old with a college degree and working in a pathology lab) and for about three days, we weren't sure my wife was going to live. A couple of decades earlier, the doctor informed us that both mother and baby would probably have died; that same doc told my wife, "You will not survive another pregnancy."
We had our third child (our fourth was adopted later) and were happy with our family. So I had that procedure done before my wife was even discharged from the hospital. I was 35. But key: I was not opting out of fatherhood. Increasingly, young British men are, and this is one glaring sign of that demographic decline. And British culture and media are promoting the procedure.
What is going on here? Vasectomies are first legitimised (there’s no shame in them), then normalised (everyone’s having them) and finally trivialised (they’re actually kind of a laugh). There is a studied refusal to entertain the deeper implications of the operation, which is further obscured by its euphemistic association with ‘health care’. For what, exactly, does sterilisation have to do with health? The aim is to inflict permanent injury on the body: not to make whole but to pull apart, not to heal but to destroy. However practical one might find it, the honest name for such a thing is mutilation. It is precisely for this reason that vasectomies were banned in France, under the Napoleonic Code, until 2001.
Now, here's the thing: I wouldn't call it mutilation. That's a bit of a reach. It's a legitimate procedure in certain cases, like mine. Being told your wife will not survive another pregnancy is a pretty good motivator for this solution. I love my wife beyond my ability to describe; even then, I planned on us growing old together, so I got the snip.
This, though- this alarming rise in vasectomies among young men who are not heading families, who do not intend to head a family- that's not only alarming, but the trend it's part of is alarming. The future, as the saying goes, belongs to those who show up for it, and the ethnic British people have opted out.
Here's the problem: Here in the United States, the younger generations seem to be following suit.
A look at the countries where the population is already declining is illustrative. Russia, China, and Japan are among the lowest birth rates, but the raw numbers are somewhat misleading; in the United States, our stable population is driven not only by reproduction, but by immigration, legal and illegal. In the United Kingdom, the problem is more pronounced; since 2020, almost all of the U.K.'s net population growth has come from immigration, largely from northern Africa and Asia.
It is belaboring the obvious to note that this isn't a sustainable population model. Too many of the nations of Western civilization, a civilization model that started with the ancient Greeks and the Romans and spread across the world to bring much of the people of the world into dizzying heights of prosperity and technological achievement, are now declining. The people of the United Kingdom are caught up in this, and this rather bizarre fascination with vasectomies being the "cool" thing among young men is just the latest in a long list of symptoms of the cultural suicide of Europe.
