Controversy over frozen egg treatment

A majority in the Dutch parliament is against allowing women to freeze their eggs to use when they will no longer be fertile. Medical professionals are also voicing concern.

Members of parliament oppose plans by the Amsterdam Medical Centre to facilitate single women in their thirties who want to have children later in life by freezing their eggs. Christian coalition parties CDA and ChristenUnie want a complete ban on the treatment, which AMC on Tuesday said will become available next year. Labour members of parliament are calling for scientific research into the safety risks for mother and child.

Health minister Jet Bussemaker (Labour) said on Wednesday there were no legal objections to the plan. But Labour member of parliament Khadija Arib said "that doesn't mean everyone can just do as they please." Arib wants doctors to draft guidelines as to what would make a single woman with a child wish eligible for the treatment.

Arib said the procedure is "questionable" because, unlike regular in vitro treatments, these women do not have a medical condition. She pointed out that the Netherlands already has a high baby death rate, partly because women give birth when they are relatively old.

Janneke Schermers of the Christian Democrats said that "medical science should be used only for medical purposes" and not for "wishful medicine". She thinks the possibility of freezing eggs could make women postpone pregnancy even longer. In an opinion article in NRC Handelsblad she wrote: "Sometimes people just have to accept that things are not the way they would wish."

Arib dismissed Schermers' argument: "I would never say that you just have to accept that you will never have children."

Only one political party, the left-wing liberal party D66, has voiced support for the plan. "If the technique to freeze eggs is safe and efficient, women should have the choice to make use of that," said Fatma Koser Kaya.

Medical professionals have also raised concerns over the AMC initiative. Gynaecologist Arnold Simons called the procedure "a perversion of reproductive medicine". Ben Fauser of the Utrecht Medical Centre responded: "We are trying to reduce the risks of late pregnancies for society and this is a move in the wrong direction."