Egg freezing – family planning 2.0
There has been a controversial public debate in Germany about egg freezing to enable women employees to delay child-bearing.
The news about companies paying the costs of elective egg freezing to enable their female employees to delay child-bearing was followed by a hefty debate in Germany. Does this amount to an emancipatory revolution? Or does this “social benefit” simply reinforce the frequently complained-about incompatibility between working and family life? While specialists in reproductive medicine speak of precautionary egg-cell preservation, many politicians take a more critical view. Family experts in the CDU/CSU Bundestag group, for example, see the offer as “immoral, sending a dangerous social message and unacceptable in family policy terms”.