Non-medical egg freezing sponsored by employers: an ethical evaluation

Abstract

Apple and Facebook offer their female employees financial support for freezing their eggs, so that they can postpone pregnancies to a later point in time that clashes less with their careers. I would like to make an ethical evaluation of this policy. Hence, my research question is the following: is non-medical egg freezing sponsored by employers morally laudable, morally permissible or morally impermissible? I will give an overview of the (dis)advantages of non-medical egg freezing and evaluate whether some of these (dis)advantages are legitimate violations or promotions of morality. I will conclude that there are more violations of morality than promotions of morality. In my chapter on corporate responsibility, I will conclude that firms carry moral responsibility due to the unequal relationship between employer and employee and the sphere of influence of firms. Finally, I will apply the conclusions of the previous chapters to three cases. I will conclude that due to the prevalence of violations of morality sponsored non-medical egg-freezing is morally impermissible. The question that remains at the end of this thesis is the following: why do Facebook and Apple want to offer non-medical egg freezing to their employees? I will conclude that even though Facebook and Apple may have actually had good intentions, they have failed to recognize the fundamental ethical nature of the case of non-medical egg freezing and the responsibility that comes with it.