It's okay to not freeze your eggs
Young women face a lot of pressure to freeze their eggs. Some arguments against.
Earlier this year, I sat on a panel in a university seminar. Towards the end of the session, egg freezing came up. My two fellow panellists, one a fertility lawyer, the other a fertility counsellor, both got behind it. They thought it was a great advance. They encouraged the young women in the class to consider it.
I disagreed. I encouraged them to be skeptical.
I have been watching with both interest and alarm as egg freezing has moved from the sidelines to the mainstream. From "freezing parties" and "free fertility checkups" to workplace benefits and Twitter confessions by academics who are opting for it, young women are feeling pressured to follow suit.
If freezing eggs and using them later were simple, I would be more enthusiastic. But I'd still be sounding a note of caution. As I will try to set out below, eggs are only one part of the issue. The other parts may in fact be more important.
But egg freezing is not simple. And using frozen eggs is not either. In fact, it sets the egg freezer up for an expensive, medicalized conception. It also sets her up for some very complicated decision making.
I have no doubt that for some women, egg freezing will prove to be a good decision. But I worry that for the majority, it will be a misstep, and for a few, a tragedy.
I predict that in 30 years' time we will look back on this as one of the biggest boondoggles of our generation. We will talk about how we duped our young women, took their money in return for false hope, channelled them toward ruinous choices and left many of them not just in debt, but childless. All the while, we failed to resolve the real issues behind why many women who want children don't feel they're able to have them.
If you are in your twenties or early thirties and have no medical reasons to freeze your eggs, the item below is for you.
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