It’s not a procedure you’d expect a 28-year-old to be planning. But for Lydia Echols from Texas, having her fallopian tubes removed is the price she’s willing to pay to ensure her reproductive rights.
Newsweek spoke to five women who have either undergone sterilization procedures or plan to in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s victory on November 5. They all expressed fear their reproductive choices will be taken from them under Trump’s administration.
“If I am to be denied any rights in the next four (or more) years, I will not give them up without a fight,” Echols said. Newsweek has contacted Trump’s transition team, via email, for comment.
Last week, a 39-year-old from Washington state, who did not want to be named, underwent a bilateral salpingectomy, in which her fallopian tubes were removed.
“I am not happy that I felt forced into a surgery I did not want to alter my body, I feel like the election tied my hands and forced me to be sterilized—that is horrible,” she told Newsweek.
The issue of abortion and reproductive rights was a major one in this year’s election. Trump, who took credit for the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, removing the constitutional right to an abortion in the country, has repeatedly said that his position is to let the states decide their own abortion laws.
He has also said he would veto a national abortion ban, writing on Truth Social in October: “I would not support a federal abortion ban, under any circumstances, and would, in fact, veto it, because it is up to the states to decide based on the will of their voters (the will of the people!)”.
But this has not quelled the fears of multiple women who, on top of being worried about access to abortion, are also concerned about whether the availability of birth control will be impacted.
The woman from Washington has not told those close to her that she has been sterilized. Since she was a child, she has known she does not want children.
She and her husband, who had a vasectomy in 2021, both felt that they had experienced too much trauma as children themselves to be the parents they wanted to be. She has also struggled with multiple health issues, including polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which made pregnancy risky for her.
But “neither of us wanted to subject me to an unnecessary surgery or jeopardize my health.”
“I paid way too much attention to the vitriol Trump repeatedly spit during his previous term,” she added, “and am keenly aware of the people he keeps around him and in his ear, who all seem to see women as incubators and possessions to subjugate.”
The woman scheduled a sterilization appointment in October, “fully planning to cancel the surgery the day after the election, assuming Kamala won.”
