The Price of Delay: When Empowerment Becomes Exploitation
JB Quinnon
May 2
2 min read
In one breath, we see women across the globe raising their voices against Big Pharma—protesting the astronomical costs of life-saving medication and calling out a system that prioritizes profit over public health. These demonstrations reflect a deep frustration with an industry that many believe has commodified survival itself.
But in another breath—perhaps a quieter one—we see a different transaction: a woman swiping her credit card to pay $10,000 to store her eggs. Add in monthly storage fees and consultation costs, and the total can soar even higher. This isn’t just fertility planning—it’s another revenue stream for the same industry being protested.
So how did we get here?
In recent years, media narratives—many subtly funded by pharmaceutical or biotech interests—have increasingly glamorized the idea of “waiting” to have children. Career first. Independence first. Stability first. And while these messages are often framed as empowering, they conveniently overlook the biological reality that female fertility declines significantly with age.
Enter Big Pharma’s solution: egg freezing. Framed as freedom, it’s actually an expensive insurance policy with no guarantee of success. The average cost of one egg-freezing cycle ranges between $10,000–$15,000, not including annual storage or eventual IVF procedures.
This paradox highlights a contradiction: society pushes women to delay childbearing in the name of empowerment, but that delay funnels them right back into the arms of the very corporations they distrust. It’s not reproductive freedom if it’s shaped by profit motives and narrow portrayals of womanhood in media.
Empowerment should be about informed choice—not manufactured dependency. If we’re going to challenge Big Pharma’s grip on our health, we can’t ignore the slick packaging of their long-term strategies. The freedom to choose must include full transparency, biological literacy, and a system that prioritizes care over cash.
Yorumlar