Update law on freezing eggs, doctors urge

THE law must be changed to avoid thousands of women having their eggs needlessly destroyed, the country’s leading fertility doctors have said.

The British Fertility Society said the 10-year limit on storing eggs for women wishing to preserve their fertility was “arbitrary” and did not take into account new technology.

Since 2001, more than 3,700 women have frozen their eggs in the hope of having them fertilised and reimplanted in the future via IVF.

Some do so ahead of damaging treatment such as chemotherapy, but increasing numbers of healthy women are electing to pay for storage because they want to delay starting a family.

Under the current legislation, while those who freeze their eggs for health reasons may have them preserved for 55 years, “social” freezing can only be permitted for a decade.

The society wants the time limit on social freezing to be pushed back to 55 years.

The chairman, Prof Adam Balen, said: “There is no justification for the 10-year time limit for eggs or sperm. It has no rationale and I think they just plucked the number out of thin air.”