Closed petition Extend the 10-year storage limit on egg freezing

Closed on 27 October 2018

In the UK, the HFE Act states that all gametes can be stored for up to 10 years, but for medical egg storage and for sperm storage it can be extended to 55 years. Currently, eggs frozen for social reasons cannot be extended for more than the initial 10-year period; it is this we wish to change.

Research examining social egg freezing have most commonly identified the lack of a suitable partner, a fear of running out of time to form the desired family, and a fear of future regret as driving women’s use of this technology (Baldwin, 2018; Baldwin et al 2018; Waldby, 2015). In order to allow women to have sufficient time to use their stored eggs to conceive the 10 year time limit needs to be removed.