Women have to use or lose frozen eggs in 10 years. Why?
Fertility experts are urging the government to dump legislation that demands women who have frozen their eggs must use them within 10 years. After this time period, fertility clinics are obliged to destroy the eggs, irrespective of what the woman they belong to wants – unless she has been through the egg-freezing process because her fertility is compromised.
The law at present dictates that any woman who has had her eggs frozen for “social” reasons – non medical reasons (for instance, she hasn’t met a suitable partner) – has a maximum of 10 years in which to use them. Before we even begin to unpack the implications of such restrictions, let’s look at the term “social.” To say it’s pejorative, is putting it lightly.
It often feels like nature is cruel, when you consider that us women must remain aware of her fading fertility before she is ready to think about having a baby. But that is our biological lot. Thus, we increasingly turn to options such as egg and embryo-freezing, to give ourselves more time and recourse. That some people see the use of these technologies to help with childbirth decisions as “social,” is frankly laughable.
Since 2010 there has been a rapid increase in the number of women choosing to freeze their eggs. This most often happens through private clinics at eye-watering costs, because health services will only offer egg-freezing to women who are medically compromised. The private sector monetizes women’s hope, and has continued to do so, in spite of a lack of robust data on the success of the process. Cryo-preservation tanks don’t just contain our eggs, they contain our fragile and perhaps sometimes misguided faith.
Nature can be brutal. Especially if you’re born with a womb. There is no doubting that egg-freezing is a hard process involving mind-clouding hormone treatment, invasive tests and painful procedures. I know, because I’ve done it. But the existence of this law as it stands, in clear disregard of what technology can now do, continues to give women the message that their hope should have a limit.
It is 2019. This law must change not just to remain in line with technological advances, but to stop treating women’s hopes and desires as something so ephemeral. We can’t stop our biological clocks ticking, but god knows we deserve the option to take the reins if we choose to.
Source – The Guardian (Eleanor Morgan
