It wasn’t long ago when online spaces were filled with ads from egg banks, promising significant payouts—sometimes upwards of $30,000—for successful egg retrievals. For many young women, this seemed like a viable, if somewhat unusual, way to tackle student debt. However, as I’ve moved past the age of 25, the online advertising landscape targeting me has shifted. The focus is no longer on egg harvesting as a quick financial fix, but rather on fertility cultivation and hormone tracking. Algorithms, it seems, have decided I’ve transitioned from a potential egg supplier to a consumer seeking fertility solutions.
I’ve gone from being the chicken to the customer ordering the omelet.
This shift in perspective was reinforced during a recent visit to my gynecologist. When I inquired about fertility and hormone health, my questions seemed to take her by surprise. Perhaps because I wasn’t actively trying to conceive and had no apparent health concerns that would raise red flags.
Quickly gauging my underlying interest in future family planning, she confidently advised, “You really should consider freezing at least 20 eggs to give yourself more options later in life.” The implication was clear: freeze your eggs and then you can simply put the whole question of fertility on ice, so to speak! How incredibly convenient and forward-thinking!
While her suggestion wasn’t completely out of left field given my expressed desire for children someday, it highlighted a somewhat unsettling trend in how Western societies approach family planning and women’s fertility. It’s become almost a clinical, detached process. “There are absolutely no ethical concerns because it’s not an embryo,” she reassured me, as if reciting a well-rehearsed sales pitch for egg freezing. But it made me wonder: if the purpose of freezing eggs isn’t ultimately to create an embryo, then what exactly is the point? Is it simply about buying time? Or is there a deeper cultural narrative at play here?
After the third repetition of the “no ethical concerns” line, I felt compelled to offer a polite clarification. “Thank you for the explanation, but I’m Catholic, so that option isn’t really aligned with my beliefs.”
My doctor seemed genuinely surprised that the Catholic Church doesn’t endorse IVF and related procedures. With a polite, almost knowing smile, she suggested, “Well, you never know, the Pope might change his mind eventually.” Parsing out complex theological matters with my doctor in a paper robe was certainly not on my agenda for this gynecologist appointment. All I wanted was to gain a better understanding of my own body and reproductive health.
It struck me as odd that a medical professional specializing in fertility and women’s health seemed unaware that fertility interventions are a significant area of moral consideration for many people in America, and globally. In vitro fertilization (IVF), egg freezing, surrogacy, and similar reproductive technologies are not just Catholic concerns; they are ethically complex issues for many religious individuals and families. Even when these procedures aren’t outright prohibited, various restrictions and guidelines may apply depending on one’s faith tradition. For instance, some branches of Orthodox Judaism permit certain types of fertility intervention, provided they adhere to specific religious principles. The same holds true for many Muslims who seek to balance medical advancements with their faith’s teachings.
It’s inaccurate to portray Catholics as reproductively suppressed or somehow behind the times. Instead, we adhere to a particular theology of the body. Within the context of marriage, there is an expectation of openness to the possibility of children, but this is far from being a “breeding cult.” Many devoted Catholics—nuns, monks, priests, and consecrated single individuals—choose celibacy and live fulfilling lives without children.
Within marriage, the concept of being open to children actually alleviates pressure surrounding family planning. It encourages a posture of receptivity, of letting life unfold rather than meticulously controlling every aspect of it. This is a world away from proactively strategizing to implant a pre-determined number of embryos. The thought of saying to a future partner, “No rush to start a family! I’ve got a dozen eggs already frozen!” feels unsettlingly transactional. It risks turning what should be a profoundly human and intimate experience into something resembling a business project plan. How far removed is this from the natural unfolding of life and love? And what is the cost, not just financially, but emotionally and spiritually? Perhaps “How Much Is A Dozen” is not just a question of price, but a question of value. What do we truly value in the process of creating a family?
This doctor’s appointment echoed a conversation at a dinner party shortly after I moved to Washington, D.C. A woman in her early 30s, working at the White House, casually asked the table if anyone had considered freezing their eggs. Most of us hadn’t, although one woman mentioned she planned to explore it later in the year. The White House staffer shared that she was actively in the process of freezing her eggs and expressed some regret for not starting in her mid-twenties.
Coming from the Midwest, I had always associated IVF and egg freezing with celebrities in their fifties experiencing a midlife desire for children, or couples facing significant infertility challenges. It’s clear that a cultural shift has occurred since my upbringing in the early 2000s. The current default perspective seems to be that pregnancy and family formation are things to be rigorously planned, managed, and even delayed as a matter of course.
This pervasive desire to postpone, meticulously plan, and control births and pregnancies is undoubtedly contributing to the declining average family size in America. It’s further complicated by the fact that hormonal birth control has become the assumed norm for women, making natural fertility something that must be actively “switched on” and then precisely scheduled. This issue has even become a contentious point in contemporary political discourse. One side broadly believes that growing families should be seen as a positive indicator of societal health and vitality. The other often views this perspective with alarm, tapping into deep-seated anxieties instilled in many women about the “right” time and way to have children. However, this prevailing anti-child default is poised to create significant economic challenges for social welfare programs that depend on a stable and expanding tax base.
Egg freezing and IVF are not simple undertakings for women. They typically involve months, if not years, of hormone injections, frequent doctor visits, intensive health monitoring, and invasive procedures. The risk of miscarriage is also statistically higher with these interventions. These processes can be physically and emotionally taxing, which makes the almost cheerful enthusiasm of my doctor and other proponents of these procedures seem even more disconnected from the lived reality of undergoing them.
This cultural attitude shift prompts important questions about how we, as a society, value children and the family unit. Why has pregnancy become something to postpone or manage as a last resort, rather than a natural and potentially central aspect of life? While medicine certainly has a crucial role in supporting childbirth, should it dictate and control the entire process from beginning to end? Is investing heavily in meticulously engineering the biological prerequisites for pregnancy truly wiser or more sensible than investing that energy and resources into nurturing and raising the children we have, without such extensive interventions?
We need to critically examine the market forces and incentives that our systems and public policies are creating. A 26-year-old woman who feels pressured to freeze her eggs as a “backup plan,” only to face the emotional and physical toll of failed implantation attempts in her late thirties or forties, has not necessarily been empowered or liberated. She may have simply been sold an expensive and potentially painful “solution” to a problem that may not have even existed in the first place. Perhaps the real question isn’t “how much is a dozen eggs?” but rather, “what is the true cost of reducing fertility to a commodity?”
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