Egg Freezing: WTF?*

Marcia Inhorn’s recent CNN commentary, “Women, consider freezing your eggs” is certainly right about one thing: “Trying to balance career and family is difficult for many professional women.” Yet the solution Inhorn proposes – egg freezing – is entirely wrong. Egg freezing is a new addition to the repertoire of assisted reproductive technologies, so of course people are intrigued. But egg freezing is also invasive, dangerous, unregulated, and insanely expensive. Worse, it isn’t a social solution, so it cannot address the social causes that make it so difficult to balance career and family.

Let’s review the facts. Just six short months ago (October 2012), the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) determined that egg freezing would no longer be considered an “experimental” technology. In taking this step, the professional organization of fertility specialists notably refrained from endorsing the procedure, despite the fact that some of its members have a financial interest in promoting assisted reproductive technologies. Still, the ASRM cautioned that there is “a lack of data on safety, efficacy, cost-effectiveness, and potential emotional risks.” Oocyte cryopreservation, they pointed...