BEIJING, China (AFP) – In a closely-watched legal battle, unmarried Chinese woman Xu Zaozao, 36, announced on Wednesday that her final court appeal for the right to freeze her eggs has been denied. The procedure remains legally accessible in China only to married women.
The case has been a focal point in ongoing debates about women’s rights in China, particularly in light of concerns about the nation’s declining birth rate. Xu aimed to preserve her fertility, providing a backup plan to have a child independently if she could not find a suitable partner.
“The appeal is rejected and the original judgment is confirmed,” Xu revealed in a live video broadcast on Chinese platform WeChat. Though the outcome was anticipated, she expressed a sense of closure. “The most important thing is that, after so many years, we’ve finally reached an end, a result of sorts, an answer,” she stated, vowing to “not give up” on advocating for her cause.
In 2018, Xu, then 30, attempted to freeze her eggs at a Beijing hospital but was refused. The facility cited procedural restrictions, explaining that the service was only available to women who could not conceive naturally, excluding healthy women like Xu. Displeased, Xu pursued a lawsuit against the hospital. However, her case was dismissed in 2022 by a Beijing court, which ruled the hospital’s actions were not illegal and did “not constitute an infringement of (her) rights.”
Undeterred, Xu lodged an appeal the following year, but the higher court upheld the initial ruling. Despite the setback, Xu found solace in the public discussion her case has ignited. “I think (this cause) is going in the right direction. Public opinion has changed quite a bit in recent years,” she noted, emphasizing that new legislation would potentially become “increasingly favourable to single women.”
China faces a significant demographic challenge; in 2022, the country recorded its first population decline in six decades. Amid dropping birthrates, the government has been strongly encouraging citizens to have more children. Concurrently, economic development has propelled more Chinese women into the workforce, leading many to delay marriage and childbearing. Women often experience familial pressure to marry and have children after the age of 30.
Freezing eggs offers women worldwide the flexibility to extend their reproductive timelines. The process involves extracting oocytes and preserving them in liquid nitrogen for future use in pregnancy. However, the procedure’s accessibility is geographically varied. Some single Chinese women seek egg freezing overseas, but significant financial barriers exist for many.
Xu’s case highlights the disparities and challenges single women face in China regarding reproductive choices. While the legal avenues may have closed, the conversation she started continues, inching the nation toward potentially more inclusive reproductive policies.
