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BUDDHA: Thai men undergo vasectomies by the hundreds
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Subject: BUDDHA: Thai men undergo vasectomies by the hundreds
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Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 14:48:22 +1000
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Reply-To: Tim Mansfield <timbomb@dstc.edu.au>
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Sender: owner-buddha
Quality international current affairs from our
correspondent-at-the-scene Andrew Wood...
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Thai men undergo vasectomies by the hundreds to honor king's 50th
anniversary
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Copyright © 1996 Nando.net
Copyright © 1996 The Associated Press
BANGKOK, Thailand (Dec 5, 1996 10:18 p.m. EST) -- Marking their king's 50th
anniversary on the throne, hundreds of Thais had vasectomies in his honor
Thursday.
The nation marked a national holiday as King Bhumibol Adulyadej turned 69,
the last major event of a Golden Jubilee year that has seen a frenzy of
reverence by his subjects.
In one of the stranger honors, the Population and Community Development
Association, which has performed free vasectomies on the king's birthday for
17 years, bestowed mass sterility in a daylong, carnival-like event.
"A part of the reason I got the vasectomy is that it's the king's birthday
and his Golden Jubilee," said Somdej Vanikabutra, 33, a truck driver with
three children.
"It's a thing to be proud of when you remember it in the future, or when
your children ask when daddy got his vasectomy," he said.
To Thais, the world's longest-reigning monarch symbolizes stability amid
shaky civilian governments and economic uncertainty. Criticizing Bhumibol is
illegal, and he is genuinely revered.
His jubilee year has been celebrated with a candlelight march through
Bangkok by hundreds of thousands of people, a procession of ornate royal
barges down the Chao Praya river, and even the first state visit by a U.S.
president since 1969.
"Thais love to do good things to honor the king," said Dr. Apichart
Nirapathpongporn of the population association. "A vasectomy is considered a
good thing because it can make families happy."
As a rule, the group gives vasectomies only to men who already have had two
children. The youngest must be at least a year old, so as to lessen the
chance that a child would die and make the father regret that he couldn't
have more.
The mass vasectomies are part of a nationwide family-planning program that
has slowed Thailand's population growth rate from 3 percent to 1.1 percent
over the last 25 years.
The occasion is festive, with free food and drink and even a condom-blowing
championship. Wives and children come along, to cheer the men up before and
after the seven-minute operation doctors described as safe and painless.
Over the years, the group has performed 80,000 vasectomies, 30 percent of
Thailand's total.
Even with all those vasectomies, Thailand's biggest population news this
year wasn't the Golden Jubilee festivities -- but the birth of the 60
millionth Thai last month.
Copyright © 1996 Nando.net
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