Social egg freezing may inadvertently encourage single motherhood by choice

[Angelica Cheng]

Can permitting social egg freezing in Singapore encourage single motherhood by choice?

Answer: In a parliamentary session on 25th February 2021, Member of Parliament for Tampines GRC Cheng Li Hui called for permitting social egg freezing in Singapore. At the same time, she also suggested banning women who remain unmarried from using their frozen eggs for IVF treatment, which is aki...

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In a parliamentary session on 25th February 2021, Member of Parliament for Tampines GRC Cheng Li Hui called for permitting social egg freezing in Singapore. At the same time, she also suggested banning women who remain unmarried from using their frozen eggs for IVF treatment, which is akin to sweeping the entire issue of “single motherhood by choice” under the carpet.

This is an intractable and tricky problem that is unlikely to go away.

Because single women who freeze their eggs do so with the strong expectation of using these to conceive children in future, regardless of their future marital status.

Not every single woman who freeze their eggs can be expected to successfully find their “Mr. Right” in the future. Under such circumstances, banning unmarried women from using their own frozen eggs is bound to create much resentment and discontent in future, among those that remain single.

It is likely that such a group of disgruntled single women may band together to file a “representative action” or “class action” legal suit against the government to allow them to utilize their frozen eggs to become “single mothers by choice”. Worse still, there is a risk that such single women may even be compelled to enter ‘sham’ or ‘temporary’ marriages just for the sake of achieving their dream of motherhood with their frozen eggs.

A politically expedient solution that the government might possibly consider, is to discreetly allow single women to export their frozen eggs to overseas fertility centers for IVF with donated sperm, thus leaving an open backdoor to “single motherhood by choice”. But this is clearly unsatisfactory, because this would mean unclear and misaligned policy direction by the government on the issue of “single motherhood by choice". Either permit it openly, or use all means to stop it from occurring.

Hence, it is imperative that there should be more extensive, open and honest debate on the issue of “single motherhood by choice”, when discussing whether or not to permit social egg freezing in Singapore.

 

[Angelica Cheng]

DEFINE_ME

Psychology of egg freezing patients: would they consider single motherhood?

L. Schuman G. Witkin K. Copperman M. Acosta-La Greca

Objective
Oocyte cryopreservation is a treatment option for single women who would like to retain some opportunity to parent a genetically related child with a future partner. We set out to assess if these women would consider using their retrieved frozen oocytes to pursue single parenthood if they do not find a partner in a specified time.
Design
Retrospective analysis of patient interviews
Materials and Methods
From 7/15/05 to 1/25/11, 241 women considering non medical cryopreservation received a counseling session with one of two mental health professionals in a large reproductive medicine office. Both clinicians asked, “if you are not married/do not find a partner in a specified amount of time (determined by the patient), would you use your frozen eggs to pursue single motherhood?”
Results
241 women, with an average age of 37.7 +/-2.2 were interviewed between 7/15/05 and 1/25/11. A majority (58%) of women stated that they would consider single motherhood if they did not find a partner in a specified amount of time. Younger woman were more likely to respond “yes” to this question. Of women 37 and younger, 63% responded yes, compared to 54% of women 38 and older.
Conclusion
Our analysis demonstrated that the majority of women who considered this elective treatment would consider single parenthood in the future. Interestingly, this cohort of women desired to cryopreserve oocytes, involving increased physical, emotional and financial resources, rather than utilize donor sperm to conceive or freeze fertilized embryos. A greater understanding of this unique and relatively new population of women will be needed to better serve their needs.

Article Info

Publication History
P-339 Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Identification
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fertnstert.2011.07.799

Copyright
© 2011 Published by Elsevier Inc.

 

[Angelica Cheng]

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Forum: Allowing social egg freezing may have inadvertent consequences

Social egg freezing may inadvertently encourage single motherhood and overseas surrogacy.

Unmarried women who choose to freeze their eggs do so with the strong expectation that they will use them one day, regardless of their future marital status.

If they remain single, it is likely that some of them may consider single motherhood with their frozen eggs.

Although current health regulations in Singapore ban unmarried women from undergoing fertility treatment with donated sperm, there are currently no laws that stop single women from exporting their frozen eggs for IVF abroad.

Similarly, some patients who develop health problems later in life may export their frozen eggs for overseas surrogacy to circumvent the increased medical risks of pregnancy in older women.

It would be morally and ethically problematic for the Government to ban the export of frozen eggs by either single women or married couples, as they have an inherent legal right over what they consider as their own bodily material and personal property.

 

[Angelica Cheng]

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Forum: Institute safeguards against export of frozen eggs for overseas surrogacy

I refer to the call by the Women's Wing and youth wing of the People's Action Party to permit social egg-freezing in Singapore (Call to review sex ed, allow egg-freezing for non-medical reasons, July 30).

If social egg-freezing for single women is permitted in Singapore one day, it is likely that current local health regulations that ban surrogacy and in-vitro fertilisation treatment for single women will remain in force.

Nevertheless, there is a need to ensure there is no loophole in Singapore's health regulations that would allow local patients to export their frozen eggs or embryos abroad to foreign fertility clinics.

Such a loophole would provide a "back door" for single motherhood and overseas surrogacy.
Hence, stringent safeguards should be implemented.

First, the Ministry of Health (MOH) should insist on patients producing a valid marriage certificate before being allowed to export frozen eggs overseas.

Second, MOH should also require the woman's husband to approve of and sign off on the export of frozen eggs, because of the legal implications for him.
Under Singapore law, the woman's husband is by default presumed to be the legitimate father of any child born to the woman. Hence, she should not be allowed to export her frozen eggs overseas without his consent.

Third, MOH should also ensure that both the woman and her husband sign a declaration that they will not use a third-party surrogate with the exported frozen eggs, on the penalty that they will be completely barred from applying for adoption, residency and citizenship procedures for any child born from surrogacy with the frozen eggs.

On sympathetic grounds, MOH could consider waiving the third condition if a woman is able to produce a medical report validating that she is medically unfit to carry a pregnancy to term.