We want to challenge the ten-year time limit on the storage of women’s eggs which are frozen for non-medical reasons. 

The limit is causing profound suffering to women, like us, who face the destruction of their eggs, and along with that any chance of having their own biological child. 

It is preventing women from taking control over their future fertility, and restricting their reproductive rights. 

It is arbitrary, outdated, and deeply unfair. We need your help to fight it.  

Who are we? 

We are women who are fighting for the chance to have children which are biologically our own. 

We froze our eggs about ten years ago. We are not currently in a position to use those eggs, for different reasons. We have not been found to be prematurely infertile, and so we face having our eggs destroyed in the coming months, before we have a chance to use them.   

It is hard to describe the sense of bereavement and turmoil that comes with being told that your last chance of having your own children is going to be destroyed.

We are keen to hear from other women who have frozen their eggs and would like to help challenge the limit on storage. 

What do we want to achieve?

 A change in the law! We aim to get the Human Fertilization and Embryology Act 1990 updated, to provide for fair and rational limits on storage.  

Why does the law need to change? 

More and more women are choosing to have children later in life, but the “ticking clock” of fertility can be a massive source of anxiety. With a longer storage limit, women could freeze their eggs at an earlier age, safe in the knowledge that they can use these eggs later when they are ready to start a family.

 Most fertility experts agree the optimal biological time for a woman to freeze eggs is in her mid 20's, or at least below the age of 35. A woman who freezes her eggs at 26 is more likely to have a successful live IVF birth when she is 36 if she uses those frozen eggs, rather than using her fresh eggs. This is because a woman's age is a key factor in egg quality and quantity.

Yet with the current 10 year storage limit in place, her eggs could be destroyed before she is ready to use them. It is absurd that this same woman, at 37, could use donor eggs for IVF but could not use her own, perfectly good frozen eggs, simply because they were harvested more than 10 years previously. It makes no sense.

Who is affected? 

Any woman who has already undergone egg freezing faces the devastating prospect of having those eggs destroyed, unless she is considered to be prematurely infertile. Many of these women will be denied the chance of having their own biological child, if this legislation remains unchallenged.

But more widely, this affects any woman who would like to take control of her future fertility. Egg freezing provides peace of mind to women about their prospects of conception, if and when they decide to start a family. 

Why is the 10 year time limit outdated?

The 10 year time limit was set almost 30 years ago, in 1990. Since then, fertility treatments have come on leaps and bounds, but sadly the law has not kept up. 

In the mid-2000’s a technology called vitrification, also known as 'flash freezing', was introduced, which substantially improved the reliability of the freezing process. Fertility clinics started offering egg freezing commercially, and lots of women, like us, chose to put eggs in storage to improve our chances of having biological children. 

The reliability of these new procedures was recognised by the extension of the time limit for egg storage in cases of infertility to a maximum of 55 years. But the same changes weren’t made for women who are not prematurely infertile. 

How much are we raising and why?

The first step in our legal challenge will be for our legal team to send a ‘pre-action’ letter to the secretary of state for health which explains our circumstances and sets out the law, and details why the ten year limit is not compatible with our human rights.  Depending upon his response, the following step is likely to be to issue an application for judicial review in the High Court.  

We have set an initial target of £3,000 to pay for our legal team preparatory work.

Going to court to sort this out will be expensive, and we will need to raise further funds as the case progresses.  We will also need to raise money to protect ourselves from potentially crippling litigation costs.

Please help us fight this injustice.

We’re fighting this for single women, for couples (whether straight, gay or LGBTQ+), and for anyone who needs more time, to have the right to have a family.  And in doing so, there is a chance we can save our eggs in the process.

Please give us your support. All donations will go to the legal work needed for the case to succeed.

We will post regular updates. Thank you again for your support.