Ethicists Blast Tech Firms’ Offer to Freeze Women’s Eggs

A worker in the Leipzig Laboratory in Germany inspects the microinjection of sperm into an egg cell using a microscope in this July 2011 photo at the in vitro fertilization clinic. Bioethicists and pro-life leaders criticized a new "benefit" Facebook and Apple have offered to female employees -- paying for them to freeze their eggs and delay having children. (CNS photo/EPA)

by Liz O'Connor
Catholic News Service
Catholic Philly.com


LEVITTOWN, Pa. (CNS) — The recent announcements by Facebook and Apple that they would include among employee health benefits the option for young women to freeze their eggs for future use at a cost of up to $20,000 has been greeted with numerous objections by bioethicists and pro-life leaders.

Unlike normal medical procedures intended to restore health to a person with an illness, this proposal offers “risky technology” to otherwise healthy young women, noted Jennifer Lahl, president of the California-based Center for Bioethics and Culture.

“This is still an enterprise that has a very high failure rate,” she said, and no one yet knows the long-term health effects of the medications and other chemical agents that are used in the processes of retrieving and freezing eggs.

It’s amazing to her, Lahl said, how little attention “these very smart people” at the tech companies are paying to “human biology 101,” which knows that advancing maternal age always carries risks, and she said she wonders what benefits will be offered to women and children who suffer adverse effects.


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