The video begins like most gender reveal announcements. A glossy sealed box, packed with promise, teases at the results of an unborn baby’s sex. Beside the package, 24-year-old Los Angeles-based Abby Ramsay waits eagerly for the cue of pastel balloons and confetti. Instead of a candy-coloured explosion, Ramsay retrieves a medical file from inside, revealing the paperwork for an approved “sterilisation” surgery. “I’m excited to take control of my own body. I’m not a baby maker,” Ramsay writes in the video’s caption.
Ramsay, who identifies as non-binary, and a growing cohort of women in their twenties are choosing to remain child-free through tubal sterilisation surgery. Also known as tubal ligation, it is a permanent procedure that seals, cuts or ties the fallopian tubes, creating a physical barrier between sperm and egg, which is proven to be more than
