In an attempt to boost its flailing fertility rate, France plans to target women in their late 20s with a letter that attempts to lure them into freezing their eggs for future conception using assisted reproductive technology such as in vitro fertilization (IVF).
France’s largely socialized health care system already funds IVF for anyone who wants a baby. As a result, more than 4 percent of the nation’s babies are born after conception in a test tube. The “dissemination of targeted, balanced information on both sexual and reproductive health to all French men and women aged 29,” however, is designed especially to remind women that they can freeze their eggs at no personal cost without medical approval, a permission that does not exist for her when she turns 30 years old.
The rapidly declining birth rate problem is not isolated in France. Across Europe, people are waiting to have children longer than ever. Even the U.S. is reporting a record low number of births — 1.6 per woman, far below the 2.1 needed for developed countries to maintain a stable population.
Women who were sold the lies of fourth-wave feminism absolutely need to be reminded that their biological clocks are ticking. But pretending that the painful, expensive, and sometimes traumatizing procedure of harvesting and freezing their eggs is the best solution for that once again sells women something that does not guarantee them a child or guarantee France a fertility rate boost. Significantly, women who undergo ova retrieval use can suffer side effects such as excessive bleeding, abdominal swelling, discomfort, weight gain, nausea, infection, problems urinating, ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, fatal colon cancer, a potential increased risk for breast cancer, and even sudden infertility.
The proposition laid out in the targeted letter might entice more French females to take advantage of taxpayer-funded egg retrieval and storage. Whether or not those women ever use reproductive technology to commission the creation of a child using those eggs, however, is not promised. What is promised is that France’s ongoing sponsorship of test-tube babies makes human existence appear transactional and sentences countless embryos to death or indefinite life in a freezer each year.
Paying people to have babies doesn’t work. As Federalist Executive Editor Joy Pullmann accurately noted, concern about falling fertility rates is “not just that we need more human beings” but that “we need more citizens capable of sustaining themselves and contributing to others.” Similarly, finger wagging Frenchies who have yet to have a child by 29 years old are likely not going to singlehandedly create a baby boom, especially in a country that considers abortion a “right.”
In fact, the reverse result is possible. Opening the floodgates for assisted reproductive technology gives people with normally good natural procreation chances a false sense of security about their decisions to delay marriage and reproduction. Fertility procedures such as IVF are marketed as a safety net or means to circumvent a worn down biological clock, as demonstrated in the latest French letter. Freeing up men and women in their peak fertile years, however, could easily deter settling down and raising a family in favor of climbing a career ladder and hookup culture.
The Emmanuel Macron-endorsed 16-point fertility plan doesn’t stop at encouraging women to freeze their eggs. It also includes expanding the country’s fertility research capabilities to the top of the charts and nearly double the number of facilities equipped to store frozen ova.
