Giving women more fertility choices

The decision to raise the age limit from 35 to 37 for women to freeze their eggs, when elective egg freezing is implemented here by July 1, is an incremental but important step towards the recognition of women’s reproductive rights. The immediate precursor to the move is the White Paper on Singapore Women’s Development presented in March 2022, a document reminiscent of the iconic Women’s Charter of 1961. The White Paper took a concrete step towards gender equity through the action plan on elective egg freezing. Minister for Communications and Information Josephine Teo recalled worries in certain quarters that making elective egg freezing available would send the wrong signal about marriage and parenthood in the sense that some might think they could be postponed.

Over time though, as she added, most people understood better the motivations of women who wished to take up the option. Thus, it was announced that, from 2023, women between 21 and 35 years of age, regardless of their marital status, would be allowed to freeze their eggs, reversing the longstanding policy to allow only women who had medical issues that might affect their fertility to do so. Women welcomed the Government’s recognition that the freezing of eggs should be a function of personal choice, and not of medical necessity. Women’s control over their bodies could not be divorced from the personal and social decisions that they took.