Do you really need to freeze your eggs?

The algorithm knows I’m 29 and it assumes I’m single. Between vodka pasta recipes and outfit checks, it serves me a steady stream of fertility clinic ads, all promising the same dystopian bargain: donate half your eggs, and we’ll freeze the other half for ‘free’. It’s fertility preservation packaged as a girlboss win-win, complete with millennial pink or brat green branding.

Welcome to the latest frontier of reproductive capitalism, where even your biological clock can be monetised. These ‘freeze and share’ programmes are marketed as an altruistic solution to the fertility crisis. The maths is simple: get eggs from those who are anxious about their biological clock but can’t afford the £8,000 freezing fee, sell half to wealthy clients who can pay premium prices for donor eggs, and frame it all as women helping families in need. But is it empowering or exploitative?

For some, these programmes represent genuine opportunity. Donor eggs have helped countless LGBTQ+ families and individuals struggling with fertility to have children. Some donors report feeling profound satisfaction in helping others build families while preserving their own fertility options. As one London Egg Bank representative told me: “Many of our egg donors take great satisfaction in knowing they are making a profound impact by supporting individuals and couples who may be struggling to have children.”  Indeed, many women who’ve gone through these programmes report positive experiences, finding genuine fulfilment in helping others while securing their own reproductive options. But the broader system these individual success stories exist within deserves closer scrutiny.

I’ve had friends crowdfund to cover the cost of their egg freezing, asking friends and family to donate funds in order to give them the gift of time. I have friends wracked with anxiety about settling with the wrong partner because they want a family and are hyper-aware of their biological clock. I have friends, who, like me, want children in the future but are living in economic precarity well into their late twenties, and simply cannot afford the thousands that egg freezing costs. I worry about the impact of these aggressive marketing campaigns and their targeting of vulnerable women on an intimate issue rife with fear.

When asked about helping women navigate these decisions, the London Egg Bank emphasises their counselling services: “We are deeply committed to ensuring that every woman who chooses our Freeze and Share programme is fully informed about every aspect of the journey – both the immediate medical process and the emotional and ethical implications.” This includes mandatory ‘implications counselling’ with independent counsellors, aimed at helping women “reflect on the information at their own pace”.

But their marketing language reveals the underlying tensions. “It’s natural to feel some anxiety, especially in a world where many factors – career, travel, and personal growth – can delay decisions about starting a family,” they explain when asked about their targeting of younger women. “The reality is that fertility doesn’t wait, but it’s also important not to let fear dictate your choices.” It’s a careful balance between reassurance and a reminder of the ticking clock that drives their business model.

The messaging is even more brazen across the Atlantic. Cofertility, a US startup backed by tennis star Maria Sharapova, recently ran an ad declaring, “The best time to freeze your eggs is often when you can least afford it.” It’s a statement breathtaking in its naked acknowledgement of the economic exploitation at play. Their “Split” programme follows the same model as the London Egg Bank – freeze and donate half your eggs for “free”, with up to ten years of free storage, framed with the kind of tech-startup language that makes reproductive coercion sound like a product launch.

The reality is more Handmaid’s Tale than feminist utopia. “It feels like the kind of Faustian bargain you’d read about in a folk tale – prolonging a woman’s youth in exchange for her firstborn,” as one X user put it. Except instead of a magical bargain with Rumpelstiltskin, it’s venture capital-backed fertility clinics offering to solve a problem they’ve helped create through aggressive marketing.

While Cofertility offers both “Split” and “Keep” programmes – the latter allowing women to preserve all their eggs for themselves – their marketing tells a different story. Their website’s testimonials section features exclusively “Split” programme participants, all celebrating the altruistic gift of donation. It’s a calculated play on the gendered expectations of women as nurturers, selflessly giving parts of themselves to help others. When I took their eligibility quiz, despite expressing interest in both programmes, I was immediately funnelled toward “Split” – revealing how one “choice” is clearly more valuable to them than the other.

In 2020, the London Egg Bank – which boasts the UK’s largest donor database – was criticised for recruiting at university welcome events and fresher's fairs, approaching young women at the intersection of low income, student debt and career anxiety, before they’ve had time to question whether they need this intervention at all. The average age of egg donors has dropped as a result – at Altrui, another major UK clinic, the average donor age dropped from over 30 to just 24.3 years between 2020 and 2022.

“Companies can scare women into freezing their own eggs when they might not really need to,” explains Jody Madeira, a law professor studying fertility industry practices. The fear-mongering starts young – clinics are now targeting women in their early 20s, more than a decade before any significant fertility decline. One egg-freezing founder boldly claimed to the New York Times that “fertility declines at 22,” a statement that conveniently ignores medical consensus that significant decline typically starts around 32.

Companies can scare women into freezing their own eggs when they might not really need to

What’s more, a BBC investigation found 41 per cent of UK fertility clinics don’t clearly display success rates in their marketing materials. Many listed successful thaw rates – a process where eggs are defrosted to be used in fertility treatments – of between 80 and 95 per cent. But when the subsequent stages of the egg retrieval process are factored in, most clinics and studies report a varying average of live birth rates: overall, your chances of successfully having a child from a frozen egg are roughly between 12 per cent and 39 per cent.

The marketing also glosses over the physical and psychological risks. The process involves intensive hormone treatments and invasive procedures – often including multiple shots per day. Singer Kesha recently revealed she was hospitalised and “almost died” from complications after freezing her eggs. Then there’s the long-term emotional impact of having biological children you didn’t raise, but who might someday be in touch (under UK law, donor-conceived children can contact their genetic parents at 18, a life-altering possibility that gets buried in the fine print).

The London Egg Bank, which made £784,603 in 2021, frames their programme as “innovative” and “empowering.” Their spokesperson emphasises how they help women “take control of their reproductive futures”. But it’s not an opportunity presented equally, and there’s nothing particularly innovative about exploiting economic inequality. This isn’t just about individual choices – it’s about a system that’s found a way to commodify female anxiety instead of addressing its root causes. Rather than pushing for affordable fertility care, increased education over fearmongering, or economic policies that support women having children earlier, we’ve created a marketplace where young women are pressured to trade away half their reproductive potential for a chance at preserving the rest.

The adage “If it’s free, you’re the product” has never felt more true. These programmes turn women's bodies and genetic material into assets to be split and traded, all while pretending to solve the very crisis they profit from.