Based on a funds proposal launched this week, the Seoul metropolis authorities is planning to supply as much as $730 to round 100 individuals to cowl prices associated to the reversals, together with remedy and hospital stays. The price of the reversal procedures is already lined beneath South Korea’s nationwide medical insurance, whereas vasectomies and tubal ligations aren’t.
The roughly $73,000 allotted for the plan is a small portion of the fertility-related provisions within the proposed funds, which incorporates about $5.9 million for medical look after pregnant sufferers over age 35. It additionally allots about $1.6 million in funding for public marriage ceremony venues.
The supply is aimed toward “easing the monetary burden on households wishing to turn out to be pregnant,” in keeping with the announcement. The hassle means that town authorities is concentrating on even those that have taken decisive, medical steps to stop being pregnant because it appears to be like to extend birthrates. South Korea’s falling birthrate has been attributed partly to the difficulties of balancing youngster care and a profession in addition to the excessive value of elevating kids.
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Dosang Bahn, 32, obtained a vasectomy in Seoul final yr earlier than the delivery of his third youngster. He stated he’s skeptical of the brand new coverage. “I discover it pointless. I doubt those that had already undergone the process would reverse it to have extra kids.”
Bahn, who works in promoting, defined that the social and monetary pressures of child-rearing have been his predominant causes for getting a vasectomy within the first place — and he’s aware of the logistical difficulties he encountered, together with a number of visits to the physician.
“For me personally, the surgical process was awkward and I don’t wish to undergo it — or its reversal — once more, particularly when my spouse and I are executed with our household planning,” he stated.
Of the 2 contraception strategies, tubal ligations are extra invasive, have a greater threat of issues and are harder to reverse than vasectomies. Vasectomy reversals are about 90 to 95 % efficient, in keeping with Stanford Drugs, whereas being pregnant charges after tubal ligation reversals fluctuate from 50 to 80 %, in keeping with the Cleveland Clinic.
About 110 reverse vasectomy procedures are recorded yearly in Seoul, in keeping with nationwide insurance coverage information cited by a authorities official.
Seok Seon Yoo, a urologist at Trueman Males’s Clinic in Seoul, stated in an e mail that of the hundreds of vasectomies he has carried out for sufferers, “perhaps 1 to 2 %” of them later need the surgical procedure reversed.
Of those that are available for a session, the overwhelming majority find yourself deciding to get a vasectomy “as a result of they’ve already absolutely consulted with their wives and household,” he stated. Many in Korea go for vasectomies “due to their security, very low issues, and cost-effectiveness,” Seok stated.
In some international locations, pronatalist authorities efforts are criticized for specializing in short-term options resembling money bonuses as a substitute of extra lasting, sustainable adjustments resembling making youngster care extra reasonably priced or bettering gender equality within the office. In a 2022 tutorial paper, authors Stuart Gietel-Basten, Anna Rotkirch and Tomas Sobotka famous that in locations with low birthrates, many individuals say they need extra kids than they find yourself having, creating gaps which might be “usually signs of societal and financial dysfunction.”
In South Korea, incentivizing sterilization-reversal procedures isn’t an unusual strategy to low fertility. Greater than 30 native governments have taken up related initiatives, in keeping with native media. When Gimcheon, a metropolis about 120 miles southeast of Seoul, introduced final yr that it might give round $730 to individuals who have had a reversal process, the mayor stated the coverage was anticipated “to play a task in making a childbirth-friendly environment and rising the inhabitants.”
Sunhye Kim, a professor at Ewha Womans College in Seoul who research reproductive well being and rights, stated that whereas Seoul’s proposed coverage could also be useful to some individuals who require monetary help for the procedures, “it won’t enhance the birthrate.”
In 2004, the South Korean authorities added the nation’s low fertility price and getting old society to the nationwide agenda as a degree of concern. The identical yr, the nation’s nationwide medical insurance ended its protection of contraception strategies together with tubal ligations, IUDs and vasectomies and commenced protecting sterilization reversals and IUD removals as a substitute the next yr.
Kim attracts a parallel between authorities intervention within the Nineteen Seventies and ’80s and at this time. Many years in the past, South Korea “aggressively applied sterilization procedures as a part of its anti-natalist insurance policies” aimed toward lowering the birthrate, she stated, whereas, in more moderen years, contraception and abortion companies have been regulated and restricted “as a result of the low fertility price pattern is thought to be a nationwide disaster.”
The “proper of all people to decide on whether or not to have kids” ought to be assured, Kim stated. “This new coverage announcement merely confirms that altering inhabitants insurance policies can simply regulate or management people’ reproductive well being and rights.”
