Facebook And Apple Agree To Freeze Female Employee’s Eggs

Silicon Valley has long been a fertile hunting ground for top technology talents, but Apple Inc. and Facebook Inc., are putting a new spin on the meaning, by offering to freeze their female employees’ eggs so they can put off having kids till later in life.

As reported by NBC News, Facebook is already offering the perk to its female employees, while Apple plans to start next year.

Human oocyte cryopreservation (egg freezing) is an expensive procedure that costs around $10,000 per extraction, says NBC News. However, most doctors recommend storing 20 eggs to be on the safe side, which means many women have to undergo the procedure two or even three times – doubling or even tripling the cost. Annual storage fees of $500 or more add to the expense.

Cryopreservation has been growing in popularity because it can help women sidestep the often painful choice of deciding whether to put their career or family life first. The procedure offers the flexibility to put off pregnancy until a more convenient time.

Apple and Facebook’s decision is therefore very “forward-thinking”, says egg-freezing advocate Brigitte Adams, founder of the patient forum Eggsurance.com. It will of course, also give both companies an edge in their efforts to attract and hold on to top female tech talents.

It could be argued this is another step towards gender equality in Silicon Valley too. Tech companies often face criticism over diversity, as most of them (especially at the executive level) are dominated by white males.

Not everyone is thrilled by the news though. As Valleywag’s Nitasha Tiku argues, the move could be perceived as a perk that “enforces Silicon Valley’s obsessive work mentality”.

Glenn Cohen, a director at the Harvard Law School’s center for health law policy, biotechnology, and bioethics, says employers’ decision to cover egg-freezing in their health insurance plans could be viewed as a cynical ploy to convince women to put off getting pregnant until they leave the workplace.

“Would potential female associates welcome this option knowing that they can work hard early on and still reproduce, if they so desire, later on?” Cohen wrote. “Or would they take this as a signal that the firm thinks that working there as an associate and pregnancy are incompatible?”

The policies also beg the question of whether companies are simply sidestepping the issue of gender inequality – which has been a controversial topic in Silicon Valley this year – instead of dealing head-on with the need for work-life balance.