First companies in Switzerland pay for egg freezing
Published: Friday, Nov 24th 2023, 16:00
Updated At: Friday, Nov 24th 2023, 16:03
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The first companies in Switzerland are covering the costs of egg freezing. This is intended to give women the opportunity to plan their families more flexibly. From an ethical point of view, this is not without its problems.
"We at the National Ethics Committee are rather skeptical about this," said Markus Zimmermann, Vice President of the National Ethics Committee (NEK) in the field of human medicine, when asked by the Keystone-SDA news agency.
Since October, the pharmaceutical company Merck has been one of the first Swiss companies to cover the costs of employees who wish to have their eggs frozen as a precautionary measure. "Supporting our employees is very important to us," said Florian Schick, President of Merck Switzerland, to Keystone-SDA. Egg freezing is part of the solution for a better work-life balance. Ultimately, this could create a more inclusive and diverse working environment.
In Switzerland, it has so far been rare for companies to take on the freezing and storage of egg cells, which costs around CHF 10,000, several experts told Keystone-SDA. "But I can imagine that the trend from the USA will spill over into Switzerland," said Julia Schmid, who is researching the topic at the University of Zurich, when asked.
Constraints and interference in private life
The ethicist Zimmermann fears that this will create constraints. Implicitly, a company sends the message that women should prioritize their career and postpone motherhood. "This creates an expectation," he explained.
According to Zimmermann, it can also distract from making further efforts to reconcile work and family life. However, Schick expressly emphasized that this is not the case at Merck.
According to Zimmermann, this also leads to an exaggerated mixing of private and working life. "The question of reproduction and the desire to have children is a very personal one. This should not be mixed up with the question of what incentives the employer offers," said Zimmermann.
This also creates the illusion that egg freezing is a guarantee for a later pregnancy. But this is not the case, warned Zimmermann. According to reproductive medicine specialist Peter Fehr from the OVA IVF Clinic Zurich, there is an 80 percent chance that at least one child can be born after freezing 15 to 20 egg cells.
More and more frozen eggs
The freezing of eggs without a medical reason, known as social egg freezing, is on the rise in Switzerland. Every year, around 30 percent more patients make use of this service, said Fehr.
Researchers at the University of Zurich are also observing an increase in social egg freezing. In the "EEggg" research project, Julia Schmid and her research team are investigating the psychological aspects of this phenomenon.
The project is not yet complete and the researchers' online survey can still be completed until the end of November. However, the approximately 1,000 responses so far show that the attitude towards social egg freezing among those surveyed is predominantly positive, said Schmid. Many women could also imagine using such a procedure. "That was very different in earlier studies," said the psychologist. "The analysis of the data will show the reason for this."
Freezing to calm down
However, the main reason for egg freezing is not a career. "Research clearly shows that the main reason for deciding to freeze eggs is a lack of a partner," explained Schmid. However, career could still play a small role. "Women who have their eggs frozen often work a high workload of at least 80 percent," explained Schmid.
In addition, many women put their desire to have children on hold in order to wait for a more stable life situation. Fear of infertility also plays a role in the decision to freeze eggs. Eggs are sometimes frozen to calm this fear. As a result, the proportion of women who actually use their frozen eggs is low.
In addition to female egg cells, male sperm cells can also be frozen. "In women, however, fertility is more strongly linked to age than in men," explained Schmid. This could be the reason why this topic is approached differently for men than for women.
©Keystone/SDA
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