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community weblog
Your Boss Will Freeze Your Eggs Now
Your Boss Will Freeze Your Eggs Now There is always a market for products, from skin care to weight loss, promising to ease the angst of womanhood. Efforts to slow down the reproductive clock are no different. The business of egg extraction is thriving, among the privileged group of people who can access it.
posted by cats are weird on Jun 30, 2024 at 11:56 AM
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And just like the other groups of products mentioned, egg freezing costs a lot to maybe sometimes be effective for some people.
posted by Selena777 at 12:39 PM
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It's much cheaper outside the US, like say Prague, so maybe consider that if paying.
posted by jeffburdges at 2:16 PM
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There was a Guardian article awhile back that claimed the success rate of getting pregnant for women who froze their eggs and later tried to conceive was surprisingly low — I remember it as 10%.
posted by jamjam at 6:39 PM
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So I am an old - and this just gives me the total ick.
If any of my three daughters said that their employer was making this available to them - I would ask them to think about changing jobs. Any employer who is going to treat you as some sort of divisible person, ready to be compartmentalised into different functions, does not deserve your efforts or talents.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 7:54 PM
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I'm basically in the exact demographic described in this article, and yeah, boy my feelings are mixed. On one hand, of course it feels profoundly unfair that ambitious, career-oriented women have to grapple with this shit right when, traditionally, our careers are just starting to really take off, while our ambitious, career-oriented male colleagues do not.
On the other hand - my targeted ads are full of this kind of stuff and I can't shake the feeling that they're all saying "Hey ladies, scared about the passage of time? Well, no need to do any more introspection on your values and the life you want to build for yourself; just do this expensive, invasive medical procedure with a frankly low chance of success so you can continue maximizing your value as a cog in the capitalist machine! :) :) :)" The little detail in the article about how the continuing cost of egg storage is, of course, tied to your employer so you'll be paying out of pocket in perpetuity if you ever switch jobs was also depressing if unsurprising.
posted by btfreek at 9:28 PM
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So your potential children are held hostage by your employer?
posted by The otter lady at 11:20 PM
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> some sort of divisible person
one might say severable
Though it's a great show, it feels weird, man, working at the fruit stand & having them produce it. Feels even weirder because yeah, they do pay for egg freezing (and flights out of Austin if you need an abortion).
posted by ASCII Costanza head at 12:07 AM
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The title of the article (and this post) is weird, which is maybe contributing to it, but some of the comments here seem kind of misplaced? It's just something the employer adds to the coverage limitations of your healthcare plan, like any other medical benefit. It has nothing to do with being treated like a "divisible person" or having leverage over your future children.
posted by AndrewInDC at 6:35 AM
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Link is dead
posted by star gentle uterus at 6:51 AM
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(In a thread about eggs)
> Posted by Star Gentle Uterus
Eponysterical!
posted by Verg at 11:31 AM
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"It has nothing to do with being treated like a "divisible person" or having leverage over your future children"
If this type of insurance coverage is so rare that you'll probably lose it if you change jobs, that's a big incentive to stay at that job. If the only way to use your stored eggs to have children is to stay at a a job you hate, how is that not leverage?
posted by toodleydoodley at 8:39 PM
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success rate of getting pregnant for women who froze their eggs and later tried to conceive was surprisingly low — I remember it as 10%.
I haven't heard numbers, but I have heard that frozen embryos are more likely to be viable than frozen eggs. Maybe it's because they have more cells (about 100 when most are frozen).
posted by jb at 9:55 PM
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If this type of insurance coverage is so rare that you'll probably lose it if you change jobs, that's a big incentive to stay at that job. If the only way to use your stored eggs to have children is to stay at a a job you hate, how is that not leverage?
The big, lumpy expense here is the cost of retrieval. For most people considering this option, I would wager that $500/year for storage is within reach, employer coverage or not.
posted by AndrewInDC at 5:41 AM
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