Tech giants Apple and Facebook are reported to be offering to freeze eggs for female employees in an effort to attract more women on to their staff. The two companies will both cover the costs of egg-freezing procedures up to $20,000 for individual employees. Facebook’s employees are able to participate in the policy as of this year, while Apple’s policy won’t be available until early 2015, according to the news reports.It is well known that Silicon Valley companies like Google, Apple and Facebook pride themselves on making their offices and company cultures as cool as their products and offering enviable perks to their staff. However, this move is perhaps going one step too far. It certainly raises several concerns and questions. One is the fact that egg freezing is still not a very reliable way of getting pregnant. It is not a procedure with a guaranteed result of producing a baby when a woman’s natural fertility is gone in her mid-forties. One can only imagine the worst-case scenario of the ambitious 25-30-year-old who stashes away her best eggs, gives her best baby-making years to a company, and then ends up empty-handed when she tries to become a mother at age 45.
Egg freezing, technically called ‘oocyte cryopreservation’, as an elective process is still a relatively new trend first pioneered in humans in 1986. The idea was first proposed for cancer patients as chemotherapy can damage a woman’s eggs.
Another serious concern is that it seems to encourage delaying childbirth and reinforce a workplace culture that isn’t supportive of childrearing earlier in people’s careers. The offer to pay for women’s egg freezing may be a well-intended gesture by these companies, but offering it as a corporate perk undeniably sends out the message that having children negatively impacts one’s career and, therefore, postponing motherhood is professionally beneficial. It definitely feels more like corporate coercion rather than support for the full spectrum of women’s reproductive needs. Also, by suggesting that their female staff hold off on having babies, these companies are basically demanding that their employees put them before everything else, before their families, before their health.
And does the world really need seemingly benevolent corporate bosses playing god and scheduling people’s biological processes?
The decision to have a child must be made by both men and women based on when it’s right for them and not when it suits the company they work for. Rather than sending out the message that women in their twenties can’t have children if they want to excel in their work and climb up the corporate ladder, it would be better for Apple and Facebook and other companies to invest more in creating a work environment where young mothers can also thrive. Great employers would be those who give the best encouragement and support to all their employees to blend their work life with their home life in the best possible way.
