Abstract
Medical egg freezing (MEF) is being recommended increasingly for women at risk of losing their reproductive ability due to cancer chemotherapy or other fertility-threatening medical conditions. This first, binational, ethnographic study of women who had undergone MEF sought to explore women's experiences under two different funding systems: (i) the USA, where the cost of MEF is rarely covered by private or state health insurance; and (ii) Israel, where the cost of MEF is covered by national health insurance. Women were recruited from four American and two Israeli in-vitro fertilization clinics where MEF is offered. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 45 women (33 Americans, 12 Israelis) who had completed at least one cycle of MEF. All of the Israeli women had cancer diagnoses, but were not faced with the additional burden of funding an MEF cycle. In marked contrast, the American women – 23 with cancer diagnoses and 10 with other fertility-threatening medical conditions – struggled, along with their families, to ‘piece together’ MEF funding, which added significant financial pressure to an already stressful situation. Given the high priority that both American and Israeli women in this study placed on survival and future motherhood, it is suggested that insurance funding for MEF should be mandated in the USA, as it is in Israel. This article concludes by describing new state legislative efforts in this regard.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 82-92 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Reproductive Biomedicine and Society Online |
Volume | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Apr 2018 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:years. She is the author of six books on the subject, including her latest, Marcia C. Inhorn, is the William K. Lanman, Jr. Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at Yale University (USA). A specialist on Middle Eastern gender, religion and health, Inhorn has conducted research on the social impact of infertility and assisted reproductive technologies in Egypt, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and Arab America over the past 30 America's Arab Refugees: Vulnerability and Health on the Margins (Stanford University Press, 2018). Her current research project is on oocyte cryopreservation for both medical and elective fertility preservation, funded by the US National Science Foundation.
Funding Information:
The authors wish to thank Jennifer DeChello, Jeannine Estrada, Rose Keimig, Sandee Murray, Tasha Newsome, Mira Vale and Ruoxi Yu for various forms of editorial, study recruitment and transcription assistance. This study was generously funded by a grant from the US National Science Foundation [BCS-1356136, Principal Investigator (PI) Marcia C. Inhorn, Co-PI Pasquale Patrizio).
Funding Information:
The authors wish to thank Jennifer DeChello, Jeannine Estrada, Rose Keimig, Sandee Murray, Tasha Newsome, Mira Vale and Ruoxi Yu for various forms of editorial, study recruitment and transcription assistance. This study was generously funded by a grant from the US National Science Foundation [ BCS-1356136 , Principal Investigator (PI) Marcia C. Inhorn, Co-PI Pasquale Patrizio).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Authors
Keywords
- Israel
- USA
- cancer
- fertility preservation
- insurance coverage
- medical egg freezing
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Health(social science)
- Cultural Studies
- Reproductive Medicine
- Developmental Biology