About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

27 Hastings Women's L.J. 341 (2016)
Empty Benefits: Employer-Sponsored Oocyte Cryopreservation and Potential for Employment Discrimination

handle is hein.journals/haswo27 and id is 369 raw text is: Empty Benefits: Employer-Sponsored Oocyte Cryopreservation and Potential for Employment Discrimination By Ali L. Nicolette * INTRODUCTION Companies such as Apple and Facebook are beginning to follow large law firms' in offering their young female employees oocyte cryopreservation (egg-freezing) options as a perk for employment. The offer is enticing: freeze your eggs while you (and they) are young and healthy, work your way up in the company, and then have the eggs fertilized and implanted when you are financially stable and ready to start a family.2 Postponing pregnancy, whether through egg-freezing or other *J.D. Candidate, Class of 2016, University of California, Hastings College of the Law; Co-Editor-in-Chief, Hastings Women's Law Journal; Lawyers for America Fellow at Disability Rights California. 1. Danielle Friedman, Perk Up: Facebook and Apple Now Pay for Women to Freeze Eggs, NBC.coM (Oct. 14, 2014, 1:48 AM), http://www.nbcnews.coml/news/us-news/perk- facebook-apple-now-pay-women-freeze-eggs-n225011 (advocates say they've heard murmurs of large law, consulting, and finance firms helping to cover the costs, but no companies are broadcasting this support); Elie Mystal, Should Egg Freezing Be A Fringe Benefit Offered By Your Firm?, ABOVE THE LAW (Apr. 22, 2013), http://above thelaw.com/2013/04/should-egg-freezing-be-a-fringe-benefit-offered-by-your-firm/; see also Nadia Daneshvar, The Cold Truth Behind Employer-Covered Social Egg-freezing, ON THE EDGES OF SCIENCE AND LAW (Mar. 17, 2014), http://blogs.kentlaw.iit.edu /islat/2014/03/17/the-cold-truth-behind-employer-covered-social-egg- freezing/. 2. The second-wave of feminism (lasting through the 1980s) brought new opportunities for women and the idea that women can have it all became synonymous with the work- life balance of career and family. See Sue Thornham, Second Wave Feminism, in THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO FEMINISM AND POSTFEMINISM 25 (Sarah Gamble, ed., 2002); but see Nado Aveling, 'Having It All' and the Discourse of Equal Opportunity: reflections on choices and changing perceptions, 14(3) GEND. AND EDUC. 265, 265 (2002) (article analyzes earlier study that showed the combination of the demands of small children with the pressures of a challenging job was forcing women to put their careers on hold. While these women have demonstrated that they can succeed on male terms, a number of competing discourses, coupled with a workplace culture that enshrined male patterns of participation as the norm, ensured that their work patterns essentially replicated the HASTINGS WOMEN'S LAW JOURNAL 341

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most