Financing future fertility: Women's views on funding egg freezing

Abstract

Like other assisted reproductive technology (ART) procedures, the cost of egg freezing (EF) is significant, presenting a potential barrier to access. Given recent technological advancements and rising demand for EF, it is timely to reassess how EF is funded. An online cross-sectional survey was conducted in Victoria, Australia and was completed by 656 female individuals. Participants were asked their views on funding for both medical and non-medical EF. The median age of participants was 28 years (interquartile range 23-37 years) and most participants were employed (44% full-time, 28% part-time, 33% students). There was very high support for public funding for medical EF (n = 574, 87%), with 302 (46%) participants indicating support for the complete funding of medical EF through the public system. Views about funding for non-medical EF were more divided; 43 (6%) participants supported full public funding, 235 (36%) supported partial public funding, 150 (23%) supported coverage through private health insurance, and 204 (31%) indicated that non-medical EF should be self-funded. If faced with the decision of what to do with surplus eggs, a high proportion of participants indicated that they would consider donation (71% to research, 59% to a known recipient, 52% to a donor programme), indicating that eggs surplus to requirements could be a potential source of donor eggs. This study provides insights that could inform policy review, and suggests revisiting whether the medical/non-medical distinction is a fair criterion to allocate funding to ART.

Keywords: Accessibility; Affordability; Egg disposal; Egg freezing; Oocyte cryopreservation; Public funding.

Fig. 1

Proportional Venn diagram representing opinions on ‘How should medical egg freezing be funded?’ Almost half of the participants thought that medical egg freezing should be covered completely through the public funding system.

Fig. 2

Proportional Venn diagram representing opinions on ‘How should non-medical egg freezing be funded?’. Participant opinions were divided; approximately one in three participants supported self-funded non-medical egg freezing.

Fig. 3

Opinions on how non-medical egg freezing should be funded based on support for access to non-medical egg freezing. People who did not support access to non-medical egg freezing had little support for public funding of egg freezing, while people who supported access to non-medical egg freezing had broad support for different funding sources.

Fig. 4

Opinions on disposal intentions for surplus eggs amongst participants. The majority of participants indicated that they would be likely to donate surplus eggs to research or someone else.