Apple and Facebook Offer Coverage for Egg Freezing. Is it a Sign of Progress for Women?

Aleteia ^ | October 17, 2014 | ELIZABETH KIRK

[NYer]

Both the perk and the process can deceive and exploit those it intends to help.

It’s not very romantic, but the idea of egg freezing – preserving one’s eggs for later reproductive use – has a sort of practical appeal. Take my case. My husband and I met when I was 29 years old and, when we married three years later, we spent the better part of my 30s struggling with infertility. So, when the concept surfaces in the news, as it did recently with reports that Facebook and Apple will offer a benefit to cover the costs of their employees’ non-medical egg cryopreservation, I wondered whether I would have been better off had I been able to put away some nice, young eggs to be at my disposal when I finally met my Prince Charming. Sort of like a biological savings account – hoping that in my days of declining fertility, I could rest on the little “nest of eggs” I prudently had saved for myself.

While lauded in some corners as a welcome employment benefit from enlightened employers, paradoxically it perpetuates a bias against women in the workplace. In order to be taken seriously and be competitive professionally, so goes the argument, women must be treated equally to men. This seems obvious, except that equality is interpreted to mean that women should be the same as men – unfettered by the burden of biology. Egg freezing seeks to accomplish this “equality” by allowing the woman to focus on career during her peak fertile years and holding out the promise that her fertility will be available to her when she has achieved professional success and is ready to start a family. Far from promoting authentic equality for women, this view promotes a male-centric view of women that fails to respect their unique gifts and dignity. In the employment context, it means that women who are or desire to be mothers will always be at a disadvantage to men. Erika Bachiochi, author of “Embodied Equality: Debunking Equal Protection Arguments for Abortion Rights,” puts it this way:
 

If pregnancy and motherhood are understood as burdensome conditions to women – experiences that represent our inability to compete with wombless men – they will never be given the respect and accommodation they deserve.

Rather than focusing on sensible, responsive solutions, such as paid maternity leave, adequate leave time, affordable, quality childcare and flexible employment arrangements, employers who offer benefits such as egg freezing increase the pressure that some women might feel to postpone childbearing to focus on a career. According to New York Times article, “the tech companies emphasized that egg preservation was one of many family-friendly benefits they offered employees.” But, employment benefits can constitute incentives or rewards for certain behaviors, and one message covering egg freezing costs for young women sends is this: if you want to be successful in the workplace, postpone having children.

There are other arguments against the practice of egg freezing – not the least of which is that it doesn’t usually result in babies. The procedure is touted as the future of prolonged fertility for women and yet making babies with frozen eggs has a low success rate (success of implantation is less than 10% when collected under from a woman under 30 and around 4% when collected from a woman over 40). Of course, in order to attempt to conceive and bear children through the use of frozen eggs, it is likely that IVF will be required. This raises all of its serious attendant medical and moral concerns. Jennifer Lahl, of The Center for Bioethics and Culture, has made an extensive case against the practice of egg freezing, arguing that it is prohibitively expensive and that it involves numerous serious health risks, and has convincingly portrayed the devastating exploitation of women for their eggs in the film, “

There are serious moral implications as well. In , for example, an instruction drafted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and approved by Pope Benedict XVI, focused on the intention with which the eggs are frozen and clearly stated that “cryopreservation of oocytes for the purpose of being used in artificial procreation is to be considered morally unacceptable.” 

These are all compelling reasons to avoid egg freezing. And happily, there are plenty of reasons to believe that marriage and babies are not incompatible with a rewarding career. To the extent this ideal isn’t realized, let us not be satisfied with employers who pay women to forgo their natural fertility. Rather, let us encourage employers to offer genuine responses to the question of how to balance women’s professional aspirations and family concerns. Women deserve better than placing their reproductive capacities into suspended animation to benefit their employers.

But, what about advocating for its use for those women who – like me – had no deliberate intention to postpone childbearing or who did not prefer a career at the expense of building a family. I simply missed the boat on my (presumably) optimal fertile years because I hadn’t met my husband yet. Shouldn’t women like me be encouraged to set aside some healthy eggs for future use, in the same way that we are encouraged to begin building our retirement accounts? This is a welcome trend, according to Sarah Elizabeth Richards, author of "Motherhood, Rescheduled: The New Frontier of Egg Freezing and the Women Who Tried It," who suggests that younger women are more open to egg freezing because they do not see it as “a sad desperate act or punishment for not steering their love lives better. It’s a tool to plan their futures.”

Therein lies at least part of the problem I have with egg freezing: our society’s intense pressure to control and plan and perfect our futures makes us treat fertility as a tool. But, our bodies are not mere material assets, and freezing eggs is qualitatively different from prudently stewarding one’s resources to prepare for future retirement or crises. Think of the parable of the talents: egg freezing is akin to hoarding and burying our reproductive capacities in the hopes that we can dig them up intact in the future. We experience failed relationships in the present, we worry whether we will ever meet a suitable partner, and we fear that if we do meet him we will have missed our reproductive window. Therefore, my “perfect” future necessitates that I save my young eggs. But, the lesson of the parable is that this is not the way to plan for the future for it arises from fear, not love.

Fear and worry make us hunker down and try to preserve what we have. In contrast, love is selfless. It takes risks. It is sacrificial. It bears fruit. In the context of waiting for the right partner – and yet wanting to preserve your fertility – what does this mean? It means that you live without fear and anxiety in the present moment, using your gifts and talents fully. If you do meet the right person, you will give your whole self to him as a gift – for better or for worse. Your gift of yourself includes your body – in sickness and in health. This may, or may not, include impaired fertility. Regardless, a marriage built on love will bear fruit.

This view of the future is not despairing or fearful. It is hopeful – and open to the myriad ways in which marriages bear fruit. As Pope Francis has told young people,
 

Do not bury your talents! Set your stakes on great ideals, the ideals that enlarge the heart, the ideals of service that make your talents fruitful. Life is not given to us to be jealously guarded for ourselves, but is given to us so that we may give it in turn.

In contrast, the proponents of egg freezing tell young women to despair. Don’t allow them to foist on you the belief that your older self will not be good enough for your future spouse. Don’t let them force you to think of your body as a 401(k) plan … as just an investment vehicle … a mere object for hoarding, preserving, and eventually consuming.

Elizabeth Kirk, J.D., is a Resident Fellow in Cultural & Legal Studies  at the Stein Center for Social Research at Ave Maria University and former Associate Director of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics & Culture. She lives in Ave Maria, Florida with her husband and three children.

[NYer]

No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the Law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church.

EVANGELIUM VITAE - On the Value and Inviolability of Human Life

Catholic ping!

[Tax-chick]

The rejection of natural reproductive behavior is the key identifying feature of modern Western societies. There is no question but that this ideology will biologically eliminate itself.

The future looks like me. Sorry about the bad hair and big feet.

[CitizenUSA]

The article’s author was probably biologically ready to have children 15 years before she married. She says she didn’t postpone things for a career. She simply hadn’t met her husband. I don’t know what she did for 15 years, but most women who stay single until nearly 30 probably go through a series of (failed) relationships. She’s concerned about the spiritual aspects of preserving eggs, but she’s unconcerned about the prevailing fornication and adultery of millions who postpone marriage until they’re established, meet the right, or whatever? It seems to me she’s missing the forest for the trees.

[NYer]

The author is far less relevant than the proposal being made by Apple and Facebook to their female staff. To harvest eggs, women are subjected to large amounts of hormones and invasive extraction procedures that can threaten their life, health and future fertility.

How egg harvesting works.

• The average woman only produces one egg a month. In order to maximize the efficiency of collecting eggs, female donors go through a process called hyper-ovarian stimulation.
• Hyper-ovarian stimulation is a painful procedure in which a woman is required to take large doses of hormones over a month.
• The hormones over-stimulate her ovaries into producing approximately 10-12 eggs.
• The eggs are extracted by a long needle.
• The gathered eggs are then used for IVF or frozen for future use.

The dangerous effects of egg harvesting on women’s health and future fertility.

• Hyper-ovarian stimulation can result in many negative side effects, most especially a condition known as Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHSS). OHSS can result in ovarian cysts, massive fluid build-up and abdominal pain, infertility and in some cases even death.
• Studies in Italy and the U.K. suggest that at least 1 in 10 women suffer from some form of OHSS.
• The typical drug used to stimulate egg development, Lupron, is only approved by the FDA for use in prostrate cancer, NOT egg extraction!
• Females are born with a limited number of eggs. Young people often don’t think about the long term affects of their actions, particularly if they are being offered large sums of money, as young women are in egg donation or, in this case, an opportunity to postpone motherhood.

The side effects from those large doses of hormones impact other parts of the female body. A friend of mine underwent hyper-ovarian stimulation in order to improve her chances of pregnancy. Two years later, she died from breast cancer.

[Tax-chick]

It seems to me she’s missing the forest for the trees.

There is a practical aspect to this, and there is a moral aspect, and they're related. The age at which one marries is not, of itself, a moral issue, if one practices continence before marriage. As you observe, many people do not, and this affects women's chances of having children much more than simple age does.

There is a high incidence of women's having babies in their 40s among orthodox Catholics (and Orthodox), Latter-Day Saints, and some fundamentalist Protestants. It appears that age (short of menopause) is not that relevant to women's fertility if they have not used contraceptives, had abortions, or contracted STDs.

Therefore, a single woman living a chaste life can reasonably expect to have children if she marries in her 30s, even her 40s, just as if she had married in her 20s (though not as many before she reaches menopause). There are no scientifically valid studies to suggest otherwise, because the testable population does not exist.

[Tax-chick]

Excellent points. I wonder if Apple and Facebook (wasn’t it Google, too?) will keep on the payroll women whose productivity is negatively affected by side effects of the egg-extraction process.

[potlatch]

Your hair and your feet are OK, how’s the washer? hehehe

[Tax-chick]

Fixed, praise the Lord. The new water pump was installed about noon yesterday, and we’re back in the all-night laundry business. The Laundromat is only open until 8 p.m.

I have a couple of teenagers at camp this weekend, and I plan to send them to the Laundromat tomorrow afternoon, just to get all their wash done at once instead of in three sequential loads.

[House Atreides]

I commend Apple for offering this benefit for those of its female employees who VOLUNTARILY make use of it. Wanting to insure future reproductive capability is, IMHO, quite pro-life.

[Veggie Todd]

Since the IRS is taxing free lunches given to employees, these bennies will be taxed also, right?

[potlatch]

I’m so glad, I was thinking about you, lol.

[SevenofNine]

Say whatttt

That gross

[Tax-chick]

I’ve done two loads so far, without negative outcomes.

It still has a year and a half on the warranty, too, in case something else goes wrong. On the previous front-loader, we burned out the bearing that turns the basket.

[Larry Lucido]

Offer Coverage for Egg Freezing

Had to do a double-take. I seriously thought they were talking about insurance for a carton of eggs accidentally left out in the snow too long.

[potlatch]

[without negative outcomes.]

So, the whites stayed white and the blacks stayed black, huh? Lol. Great that you have a long warranty. Some stress off your back anyway. Take care.

[Tax-chick]

And all the water drained out.

You have a good night, too!

[Bobalu]

I doubt we are more than 3 decades away from easily being able to engineer new eggs for old gals that want them.

Heck, it’s even possible to coax a testicle into creating eggs... they are the same part after all, differentiated early on in gestation but still the same part.