The Observer - 11.08.2019

• The Observer
  Comment & Analysis 11.08.19 49

For women like me,

postponing the

menopause would

be a blessing

Let us imagine for a

moment that we lived in a world

where male fertility drop ped off

a cliff by the time men hit their

mid 40s, leaving a group of men

who wanted to have children but

couldn’t. When would science have

produced a fi x?

I am going to hazard a guess that

it would have been quite some time

ago. But it has taken until 2019 for

a fl edgling treatment to delay the

menopause by up to 20 years to

be offered to women, even though

the idea has been around for almost

two decades.

The treatment involves removing

and freezing a small piece of ovarian

tissue from women under the age

of 40, then regrafting that tissue

years later when they reach the

menopause. The doctors behind

this are clear that the objective is

to mitigate the nasty side effects of

the menopause that some women

experience. But it is not implausible

that this could one day be a way to

prolong female fertility.

That is why I read about it with a

sense of excitement. Perhaps I would

say this, as a woman in my late 30s

who wants but does not yet have

children, but I think enabling women

to prolong their fertility would be a

scientifi c advance worth celebrating.

I am well aware that puts me in a

minority. There are two dominant

narratives about women who try

to prolong their fertility through

freezing their eggs. The fi rst is the

dominant career woman, selfi shly

putting off having kids until they are

too old to look after them properly

(no matter that we don’t judge men

who have children in their 50s in

the same way). The second is that

women only want to prolong their

fertility because they are forced into

a choice between having kids and

sacrifi cing some career success, and

that if you take away that trade-off,

that is the problem solved.

In fact, the evidence suggests that

involuntary childlessness has less

to do with careers than romantic

success. In one study , just 2% of

women childless at the age of 42

said the reason was that they were

focused on their career. The most

common reason for involuntary

childlessness was not having met

the right partner. Research into why

women freeze their eggs suggests it

is overwhelmingly for this reason,

rather than career planning.

This chimes with me. I  will never

stop arguing that we have to address

the structural inequalities that mean

women’s biology acts as a drag on

their careers. But those inequalities

are not why I do not yet have

children. Even though I shouldn’t

have to, I would have made the

women are a third more likely to go

to university than men, they should

stop being so fussy. This rather

assumes that these women are single

because they will not settle for men

less educated than the y are, rather

than vice versa. And – surprisingly, if

you buy into the stereotype of men

being less keen on kids – similar

proportions of male and female

graduates born in 1970 were childless

at age 42 (a bout one in four), and

similar proportions of those ( about

one in three) said it was because they

had not met the right partner.

Perhaps prolonging female fertility

could benefi t men who meet their

partner later in life too. And perhaps,

as fertility science develops, this is

not to be discouraged. Is it not better

to wait a little if need be to raise a

child with someone you can spend

decades with, rather than settle into a

loveless partnership in your early 30s

just so you can have children?

The problem is the

existing science is not good enough:

just one in fi ve IVF treatments using

frozen eggs results in a live birth.

That is partly because the £7,000 or

so cost and the invasiveness of the

process mean that the average age

at which women freeze their eggs

is 38 , far beyond their fertility peak.

That’s why this new treatment to

delay menopause is so exciting: a

single 30-minute procedure could

give women access to thousands

of their eggs rather than just a

handful years late. It could one day

be a less intrusive, more effective

and cheaper insurance policy for

childless women in their early 30s.

Developing a scientifi c fi x for

the female fertility cliff edge will

not change the fact that for the vast

majority of women, the right time for

them to have children will be during

their naturally fertile years. But there

is a small but signifi cant minority

who miss the boat because they do

not fi nd the right partner in time.

It is time to grapple with the fact

that the profoundly positive social

development of women’s increased

educational and professional success

might mean that we need to use

science to rethink aspects of our

biology. To recoil at that is sexism,

pure and simple.

We must address

the structural

inequalities that

mean women’s

biology acts

as a drag on

their careers

it’s putting innocent lives at

risk.” Mansoor Shams

Al Jazeera

‘Incites racial violence’

“We have a white nationalist

president who incites racial

violence against Latino

immigrants, Muslims, Jews,

black people and others. Trump

• who has eliminated funding
  to counter white supremacist
  violence and enacted policies
  to capitalise on white fear
  of replacement by people of
  colour – inspires his followers
  to commit acts of violence
  and mass murder against said
  groups.” David A Love

Reuters

‘Incendiary rhetoric’

“Th e El Paso attack has put new

pressure on a man some white

nationalists praise as helping

advance their movement:

Donald Trump. He has come

under sustained criticism for

his racially incendiary rhetoric

since launching his candidacy

— including his repeated use of

the word ‘invasion’ to describe

immigration along the

US-Mexico border.”

Jim Urquhart & Nick Brown

New York Times

‘Failed miserably’

“If consoling the nation in a

time of desperate need is a

vital task of the presidency,

Donald J Trump failed

miserably. ” Richard Parker

Compiled by Josh Sandiford

Newsweek

‘Hateful rhetoric’

“Donald Trump may be

commander in chief, but this

Marine is not letting him off the

hook. And neither, it seems, are

the people of El Paso, Texas,

and Dayton, Ohio... Th e fact

is that while mass shootings

in America are sadly nothing

new, such hateful and inciting

rhetoric by a president is. And

The world’s view on... Donald Trump and the mass shootings in the US

Scientifi c advances that

prolong fertility can only

be a benefi t to many

would-be mothers

Sonia

Sodha

choice to sacrifi ce career progress to

have had children at this point.

Women in their mid-to-late 30s

who want children are all too aware

of another biological inequality at

play: the vastly different rates at

which the male and female fertility

clocks tick down. Dating at this age

means contending with the awful

stereotypes of women desperate

to bag a man before it is too late.

Imagine how liberating it would be

to know you have 15 years of fertility

left, just as many men of your age

do. That is something feminists

who have had their children by their

early 30s should care about, just as

female solidarity behoves women

who choose to be childfree to fi ght

the fact that having children curtails

mothers’ careers.

There will be those who argue

that women have only themselves

to blame if they are still in the

dating pool at 35; in a world where

Thirtysomething Fleabag

(Phoebe Waller-Bridge) hears

all about the menopause from

Kristin Scott Thomas. BBC

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