The number of women choosing to freeze their eggs in hopes of prolonging their fertility quadrupled between 2014 and 2021. Celebrities, politicians, and working women are increasingly spotlighted for freezing their eggs. Should Catholics endorse this trending technology or reject it?
The answer is a bit complicated. In principle, there is nothing inherently wrong with a woman freezing her eggs. But the woman’s intent for doing so, and the outcome of such a choice, must be factored in when considering the morality of the act.
With regard to outcomes, either the eggs remain unfertilized and unused, or they are thawed and fertilized. As technology currently stands, women who wish to have their eggs thawed and reimplanted must first have them fertilized in vitro. This is because the outer layer of the egg hardens after freezing, preventing sperm from naturally penetrating the cell and fertilizing it. Since the Church rejects IVF as immoral, there is currently no ethical way to fertilize frozen eggs. Surrogacy, too, must be opposed.
But what if future technology allowed the frozen egg to be reimplanted and fertilized in vivo, through the marital act? Ova, after all, are merely cells, albeit important ones. They are not human beings, whereas zygotes and embryos are. Thus, attempting to preserve these cells is neither inherently moral nor immoral. If future technology did not seek to replace the marital act, but supported the couple in better achieving the end of the marital act—fruitfulness—it could be permissible.
Other criteria must also be met, however. For instance, as bioethicist Fr. Tad Pacholczyk writes,
if the egg harvesting step could be carried out with low risk to women, if the egg freezing process would not cause any deleterious effects on children who might later come into being, and if the eggs were only used for morally legitimate purposes like [Low Tubal Ovum Transfer], freezing a woman’s eggs would appear to be morally allowable.
But even if such means became available, I think Catholics should be cautious in endorsing it unreservedly. The woman’s intent in freezing her eggs also matters.
For instance, consider a twenty-three-year-old woman recently diagnosed with ovarian cancer, who chooses to freeze her eggs. She does so in the hope of preserving her fertility, which will be threatened by the chemotherapy treatment, to increase her chances of having children with her husband one day. She uses this technology because she faces an active threat to her fertility—a threat completely out of her control. And she makes this decision with family life as her priority.
But consider another scenario: a thirty-two-year-old investment banker decides to put all her energy into building up her career for a few more years, not getting distracted by men. She freezes her eggs because she has put family life on the back burner and prioritized her career.
For women in the latter situation, egg-freezing is an optional safety net. I don’t need to get pregnant now when technology can assist me with it later! The woman thus engages in riskier behavior (delaying pregnancy) because egg-freezing provides her the illusion that she is safe from fertility issues. But ultimately, even if this woman preserves the quality of her eggs, she does not stop her own aging. Women with more education and more successful careers report greater difficulty in finding a partner. In one study, 82 percent of women froze their eggs due to being single in their thirties. And the dating pool inevitably shrinks with each passing year, limiting their options even more.
It is undeniable that many women today do not feel the same urgency as previous generations did to find a partner in their young adulthood. In 1980, the median age of women when they first got married was twenty-two. This number has steadily increased over the years, with the latest stat revealing a median age of twenty-nine as of 2022. Furthermore, only 18 percent of American women nowadays find marriage very important for a fulfilling life. (The highest-ranking variable in this study was “having a job or career they enjoyed,” which 74 percent of women said was extremely important for a fulfilling life.)
Thus, among ladies considering egg-freezing: one girl is unsure about the value of marriage; the other is more focused on building up her career in her twenties; the next just has not found “the one” yet and keeps holding off for the perfect soulmate. None of these women should jump to egg-freezing as the solution to their problem.
Gen Z is particularly susceptible to this “solution”:
For many in Gen Z, egg freezing is seen as a form of insurance against the uncertainties of life. As they witness the struggles of previous generations, the pressure to conform to traditional timelines for education, career, marriage, and parenthood appears to be diminishing. Instead, they value the freedom to explore their personal and professional aspirations without the constraints of a biological clock. By freezing their eggs at a younger age, they hope to preserve their fertility options, allowing them to pursue their dreams without the fear of reproductive limitations later in life.
Young women must deal with the uncertainties of life head-on. They need to pursue family and married life seriously—far more seriously than they pursue their career goals! Building a career takes time, but the workforce does not run on the same biological clock as fertility and health.
Do not mistake me: work is an important part of life for both men and women. But as Pope St. John Paul II taught: work is for man, not man for work. Human beings were created first and foremost for love. And man’s first encounter with love is through family life. Our work must serve this end, not threaten nor distract from it.
Yet many people (especially women) today have lost sight of this priority. A great career may offer you wonderful opportunities. But it cannot offer you the gaze of a newborn babe who sees the whole world in you, nor the sweet giggles of a wide-eyed toddler, nor the warm (and suddenly strong) embrace of your now-grown child. Your career may help you in building quite the name and legacy for yourself—plus an abundance of wealth and plenty of exotic travel memories—but if you have no children, all of that will die with you.
So let us get our priorities straight. If young women want to have babies someday, they must get out into the dating world and pursue marriage instead of focusing on their career advancement and spending thousands on egg-freezing. Even if the technology becomes morally permissible someday, it should be used not as an insurance policy, but at most as a tool to protect women’s fertility when circumstances out of their control threaten it. Simply choosing not to settle down does not qualify.