Does company-sponsored egg freezing promote or confine women’s reproductive autonomy?

Abstract

Purpose A critical ethical analysis of the initiative of several companies to cover the costs of oocyte cryopreservation for their healthy employees. The main research question is whether such policies promote or confine women's reproductive autonomy. Results A distinction needs to be made between the ethics of AGE banking in itself and the ethics of employers offering it to their employees. Although the utility of the former is expected to be low, there are few persuasive arguments to deny access to oocyte cryopreservation to women who are well informed about the procedure and the success rates. However, it does not automatically follow that it would be ethically unproblematic for employers to offer egg banking to their employees. Conclusions For these policies to be truly 'liberating', a substantial number of conditions need to be fulfilled, which can be reduced to three categories: (1) women should understand the benefits, risks and limitations, (2) women should feel no pressure to take up the offer; (3) the offer should have no negative effect on other family-friendly policies and should in fact be accompanied by such policies. Fulfilling these conditions may turn out to be impossible. Thus, regardless of companies' possible good intentions, women's reproductive autonomy is not well served by offering them companysponsored AGE banking.

Time to address gender inequalities against female physicians

“…Changing the cultural mentality toward equal roles for women and men in raising their families, while striving toward women's rights to obtain higher level medical positions, would make a great impact. Worldwide, major companies began to provide equal family planning opportunities for both women and men to have reproductive liberty, by providing additional incentives such as egg preservation . It has, however, been argued that this approach is not actually intended to be a benefit for the employee, but rather for the employer, as childless employees have more time available to invest in their jobs .…”

Public support in the United States for elective oocyte cryopreservation

“…The present study aimed to survey both men and women in the general public to decipher attitudes toward elective OC and personal use of the technology in the future. With American corporations such as Apple and Facebook recently announcing funding of elective OC for female employees, we aimed to find if the public supports OC as a reproductive right (20,21).…”

Ethical Aspects of AGE Banking

“…This concern became especially convincing when Facebook and Apple announced that they would start offering OC to their female employees. As argued elsewhere, even if AGE banking in itself may not be ethically problematic, the offer by employers is (Mertes, 2015). For such a policy to be implemented with respect for women's reproductive autonomy, a substantial number of conditions need to be fulfilled, which can be reduced to three categories: (1) women should understand the benefits, risks and limitations, (2) women should feel no pressure to take up the offer; (3) the offer should have no negative effect on other family-friendly policies and should in fact be accompanied by such policies.…”