Problems and Countermeasures on Ethics of Non-medical Indicated Oocyte Freezing

Abstract

The threat of declining birth rate in China was becoming more and more serious. Modern women have delayed their childbearing age due to occupational, economic, emotional, and other factors. More and more women wanted to seek for freezing oocyte with the aims to preserve future emergencies situation and achieve reproductive freedom, which mainly included the populations, such as patients suffering from tumor, immune diseases, and genetic diseases and person who might get treatment with the damage to their fertility. At present, except the people who might suffer the damage to their fertility with medical indicator, oocyte freezing was not reliable for women with non-medical indications in China. Since there were still many problems especially ethical issues that have not been solved well, oocyte freezing for non-medical indications in China was only performed for patients with tumors and other diseases that needed to receive treatment, which could damage the function of ovarian, or the diseases would lead to the decrease of ovarian function. However, such strict standards for oocyte freezing have turned away the fertility preservation needs of a comparable group of women. But if there were no restrictions on the indication of oocyte freezing for non-medical indications, which could cause our society withstand the corresponding potential risks? Therefore, we fully discussed the ethical issues involving in oocyte freezing without medical indications in this article, and promoted its countermeasures. This would provide a theoretical reference for better protecting women's reproductive rights while avoiding corresponding risks in the future.