My Eggs, My Future: A Criminal Speaks

A few years ago, I made an appointment to see a fertility specialist at Boston IVF. I was 34, single, and without any serious relationship prospects, and I knew one day I would want to have a baby. I worried my body would not be able to produce viable eggs when that time came for me to be pregnant. After speaking with my gynecologist and then speaking with a specialist at Boston IVF, I made the decision to freeze my eggs. I had mixed feelings about pursuing this route at the time. Feeling that if I hadn’t found the person I could have a baby with, perhaps I was a bit of a failure for having to go the route of freezing my eggs. I wrote about those feelings for Brown Girl Magazine too. 

Today, I’m proud of what I did. I had the freedom to make a decision connected to my reproductive health, my future, my family. 

A privilege that women like me didn’t have the ability to choose for themselves a generation ago. 

I feel fortunate to be alive during this time. This moment. I could ease my mind. I didn’t have to force myself into a relationship with someone I didn’t love or want to be with just because I wanted to have a baby or because culture or society dictated it. I didn’t have to listen to that tiktok of my biological clock either.

Then June 24, 2022 happened and the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade. Access to abortion, the ability for a woman to terminate a pregnancy if needed was no longer a guaranteed constitutional right. Women were no longer able to determine their own reproductive lives. Instead, the conservative-majroity Supreme Court decided it was up to the states to determine if a woman was considered a criminal or not for simply making a decision about her own body. 

In this era of an overturned Roe vs Wade, a person could be a criminal for wanting a family too. 

I learned about this potential consequences after listening to an NBC News segment in which my doctor from Boston IVF, Dr. David Ryley, discussed the uptick in people who had frozen their eggs or frozen embryos in other states with restrictive abortion laws who were now transferring them to Massachusetts, a state known to protect women’s reproductive health and choices. 

The news segment went on to explain how as state laws change following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, there is increasing concern for patients who are using in vitro fertilization, or IVF, in their efforts to have a baby. Due to varying rates of success and costly prices of IVF treatments, many people choose to increase their chances by creating more embryos, which is where anti-abortion advocates take issue with the procedure, citing that destroying unused embryos is equivalent to taking a life. With language such as “unborn human beings” being used to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the question of personhood has risen in connection to IVF. 

As I listened to the news, all I could think about was how I felt fortunate to live in a state that respected women and their choices. And also how I could possibly be considered a criminal in another state for wanting to have a child and potentially when the opportunity came about, having to go through IVF (turning my eggs into embryos) to be able to do so. 

The overturning of Roe vs Wade isn’t only about criminalizing those who want or need abortion whether due to health reasons, personal choice, economic circumstances, or a whole host of other reasons. Overturning Roe Vs Wade is also impacting those who might want to have children and are paying thousands of dollars to do so. 

I do not and never will regret the fearless decision I made a few years ago to freeze my eggs, but I do recognize that at this moment if I lived in another state, I could be in legal trouble. I could be considered a criminal. And my only sin, not settling for a partner I did not want to be with or having their child.