As Aiden Parisi-Hill was being wheeled into the operating theatre for a vasectomy – a procedure he’d spent years contemplating and discussing with healthcare professionals – his surgeon questioned the decision.
“I was telling him my reasons, and he was like, ‘Why don’t you just go celibate if you’re that dedicated to saving the planet?’”
Parisi-Hill, now 34, does not want children, chiefly for environmental reasons. He was 28 when he got the vasectomy, and is one of a growing number of Australian men choosing to undergo “the snip”, according to a recent Adelaide University analysis of Medicare data.
The analysis found the annual number of vasectomies performed on men aged 18 to 44 increased by over 60 per cent between 2016 and 2024, from 18,544 procedures to 29,848.
A vasectomy is a simple surgical procedure that involves cutting the tubes – or vas deferens – that carry sperm from the testes. While reversible, it is considered a permanent form of contraception.
In addition to his environmental concerns, Parisi-Hill’s wife has a sleep disorder, which requires regular medication. “She would need to be off that for the entire pregnancy and wouldn’t be able to work,” says the Melbourne economist.
“I think he [the surgeon] was a little more old-fashioned and his reservations might have been that it’s unnecessary,” he says.
“A lot of the onus of contraception is still on women, and vasectomies in particular are still treated as this last resort, or have negative connotations.”
Increase in young men
According to the analysis, vasectomies were most common among the 35- to 44-year-olds (the median age of fathers in 2024 was 33.9 years) and researchers also noted an increase in the 18- to 24-year-olds.
The study did not include vasectomies performed privately, or those for which no Medicare claim was made.
The study’s lead, Dr Jack Janetzki, a lecturer in pharmacy and pharmacology, says while vasectomies aren’t causing the plummeting birth rate, the procedure’s growing popularity can be viewed against the backdrop of more Australians choosing to be child-free.
He says greater awareness and normalisation of vasectomy, growing expectations of shared contraceptive responsibility and the relatively low invasiveness of the procedure compared with female sterilisation are also at play, although the analysis did not examine reasons for having vasectomies, or factors like demographic or number of existing children.
Dr Elina Safro, clinical lead at Family Planning NSW, has performed countless vasectomies and isn’t surprised by the data.
“It’s become more accepted. Technique has improved a lot,” she says.
While once exclusively performed by urologists in hospitals, they can now also be performed by specialist GPs and at family planning clinics with local anaesthesia.
Most providers in Australia use the no-scalpel technique, which involves a small puncture to the scrotum, requires no stitches and takes around 30 minutes. For an out-of-hospital procedure, patients typically pay $479 out of pocket.
While Safro says some patients are those who don’t have – or want – children, these are still the minority. Most patients today are stopping at one or two kids, compared to previous generations.
“They say they would like to take responsibility for contraception because their partner has done the hard ‘labor’ [childbearing], so to speak.”
Despite this, misinformation abounds on social media about the procedure.
A 2025 analysis of thousands of posts on social media platform Reddit, in subgroups r/vasectomy and r/postvasectomypain, for example, found that fear dominated 70 per cent of user-generated content.
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Michael Wright says it’s positive to see more men participate in reproductive health decisions, and encourages anyone considering a vasectomy to talk to their GP.
“Vasectomy is a permanent form of contraception. It’s really important that men have full information about what the benefits, risks and alternatives are, as well as future fertility considerations.”
‘Kids are pretty permanent’
Thirty-one-year-old Chris from Melbourne had a vasectomy at 28 after thinking about it for years.
“I knew I didn’t want to have children when I was quite young, [but] I thought, ‘Oh, when I get older I’ll probably start feeling differently’. But instead I just felt more resolved in that way of thinking,” says the Melbournite, who is choosing to use just his first name for privacy reasons.
“I like my peace and having autonomy with my time and money to invest into things that bring me joy, and I didn’t expect that children would be one of those things.”
Chris had the procedure under local anaesthesia and says it was a smooth experience. “Honestly, going to the dentist is worse. It was six minutes from start to finish, and I didn’t experience any pain at all.”
He met his now long-term partner after the vasectomy, and says he flagged this on his dating profile.
“I wanted to share that early, and thought it was a really good screening tool because obviously, I only wanted to date women who don’t want kids. It also signalled to them like, ‘Hey, like I’m serious about this lifestyle. I’m not on the fence,’” he says.
While Chris says he’s been “pretty judicious” about who in his life he’s told about his vasectomy, not everyone is supportive, though he notes his partner bears the brunt of the stigma against being child-free.
“It’s a pretty significant deviation from the life script and people can be a bit alarmed by the finality of it,” he says. “But it always makes me laugh because I think, ‘Well, kids are pretty permanent. You can’t undo that either’.”
One study that looked at childless men who had vasectomies, found less than six per cent experienced regret five years post-surgery. In another, between three and six per cent opted for reversal.
Conversely, various studies looking at parents put rates of regretting having children at between seven and 20 per cent.
At most providers, including Family Planning NSW, patients are required to attend an initial screening appointment
“We spend time discussing this with our patients. It’s very important to take it as a permanent procedure,” says Safra, adding the consent form requires three separate signatures.
“There is a possibility of reversing it, but with a very specific surgery which can be extremely costly. And even a successful rejoining of the tubes does not guarantee a natural pregnancy.”
Shared responsibility
Since she was a child, Sydneysider Alisha Coppinger, 30, knew she didn’t want to be a mum.
Having been diagnosed with stage four endometriosis at 16, hormonal contraception by way of an Intrauterine Device (IUD) has been a painful, expensive fact of her entire adult life.
“In essentially all of my relationships, I have felt the burden of contraception,” she says.
“Early on in dating I would get, ‘Why would I go halves on that with you?’… it was something that I became more aware of as something I wanted in my dating life – I looked for contraceptive parity.”
Indeed, despite vasectomies’ growing popularity, their uptake still pales in comparison to the estimated two-thirds of Australian women aged 18 to 44 who use some form of contraception.
Cassandra Caddy, a PhD student at The University of Melbourne whose research focuses on contraceptive responsibility, says while the burden has historically fallen on women, most men she’s interviewed believe pregnancy prevention should be a shared responsibility.
“Despite this, many lacked awareness of how they could be involved, and that ties into what we already know in the literature, which is that men generally have lower knowledge of contraception, especially of female hormonal contraception.”
Given most readily available contraception is designed for female bodies, “there’s a fear of impeding on their partner’s bodily autonomy as well”, she adds, as well as structural barriers, like a lack of reversible, effective options for men and the fact most family planning services are targeted towards women.
Contraceptive parity is something Coppinger has found with her now-husband, whom she has been with for four years.
“When we got together, he was like, ‘Why wouldn’t I pay for your IUD? It’s something that is very difficult for you to go through, it’s very painful, there’s a risk of it embedding in your uterus. But it’s helping you and it’s helping me. It’s just peace of mind’.”
Last year, Coppinger’s husband, who has chosen to remain anonymous, got a vasectomy.
She had been exploring a tubal ligation (female permanent contraception) but the process of a vasectomy was a simpler choice for the couple at the time. She is likely to need a full hysterectomy due to her endometriosis at some stage.
Coppinger, who is active within child-free communities, believes not enough consideration is given to bringing children into the world – particularly among men. Her husband was unsure about whether he wanted kids before she gave him resources and questionnaires to help him consider the future.
“People in our age bracket, and with our friends, a lot of them haven’t thought about it very much … the more these conversations happen, the better. That just makes for a happier life for people who bring the child into the world and the child themselves,” she says.
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