My patient was 40 years old and pregnant for the fourth time. She had three children under 10. She was new to America. She and her children had health insurance. Her husband did not.

She had some significant medical problems for a 40-year-old woman. She had a blood clotting disorder that had caused her to have life threatening clots in her lungs when she was pregnant, and even the strong medicine she took did not prevent more clots from forming. She came to me for an abortion because another pregnancy would have been dangerous, although it did not qualify as “life threatening” under the strict guidelines set up by the federal government.

We helped her with her abortion. It went fine, but she knew that she could not be pregnant again. She could not be on any hormonal birth control because of her blood clotting disorder, and a copper IUD was not an option because she had severe uterine fibroids. Condoms had failed her once.

I offered for her husband to come back in the next few weeks to have a vasectomy. She had never heard of such a procedure but was thrilled to learn that her husband could be the one “to have something done to him.” She had been through too much.

Vasectomy is safer, cheaper, and easier than female sterilization. The Planned Parenthood in Columbus is the only facility in Ohio that offers vasectomy to uninsured patients for less than $1000.

Her husband had a 30-minute procedure the next month. She did not get pregnant again. She did not need another surgery for sterilization. There was no radical outcome; just regular, affordable, health care.