Fertile -- or Futile?
Sept. 10, 2001 -- The public health campaign could hardly be more modest in scope, with ads limited to city buses in New York, Seattle, and suburban Chicago. Yet weeks before they even ran, the ads sparked a Newsweek cover story and a national debate. Their incendiary message: Women who put off pregnancy past their mid-30s risk never having children at all.
The campaign, sponsored by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, actually addresses several risk factors for infertility -- including smoking, weighing too little or too much, and having a history of sexually transmitted infections. But ASRM President Michael Soules, MD, acknowledges the age message has gotten all of the attention.
The ad shows a baby bottle in the shape of an hourglass, and reads: "It is a biological fact that there is a decrease in fertility with advancing age. As many women delay childbearing, there has come to be an expectation that medical science can undo the effects of aging." It further states that women in their 20s and early 30s are most likely to conceive.
"This has created much more of a stir than we ever expected," says Soules. "The fact that it seems to be resonating tells me that it is a good thing that we got it out there. We would be irresponsible if we did not put out this message because it is politically sensitive."
The reactions have been evenly divided between those who applaud the message and those who are offended by it, Soules says. Some of the most vocal complaints have come from women's-rights advocates who say aiming the campaign solely at women represents a subtle form of sexism and could serve to pressure young women into marriage and motherhood before they are ready.
But feminist writer Naomi Wolf says the message needs to be heard, because many women now wrongly believe that technology can, in effect, rewind their biological clocks. This idea has been aggressively promoted, she says, by this nation's for-profit infertility industry. Wolf recently published a book on fertility and motherhood in contemporary America entitled Misconceptions.
Fertile -- or Futile?
Sept. 10, 2001 -- The public health campaign could hardly be more modest in scope, with ads limited to city buses in New York, Seattle, and suburban Chicago. Yet weeks before they even ran, the ads sparked a Newsweek cover story and a national debate. Their incendiary message: Women who put off pregnancy past their mid-30s risk never having children at all.
The campaign, sponsored by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, actually addresses several risk factors for infertility -- including smoking, weighing too little or too much, and having a history of sexually transmitted infections. But ASRM President Michael Soules, MD, acknowledges the age message has gotten all of the attention.
The ad shows a baby bottle in the shape of an hourglass, and reads: "It is a biological fact that there is a decrease in fertility with advancing age. As many women delay childbearing, there has come to be an expectation that medical science can undo the effects of aging." It further states that women in their 20s and early 30s are most likely to conceive.
"This has created much more of a stir than we ever expected," says Soules. "The fact that it seems to be resonating tells me that it is a good thing that we got it out there. We would be irresponsible if we did not put out this message because it is politically sensitive."
The reactions have been evenly divided between those who applaud the message and those who are offended by it, Soules says. Some of the most vocal complaints have come from women's-rights advocates who say aiming the campaign solely at women represents a subtle form of sexism and could serve to pressure young women into marriage and motherhood before they are ready.
But feminist writer Naomi Wolf says the message needs to be heard, because many women now wrongly believe that technology can, in effect, rewind their biological clocks. This idea has been aggressively promoted, she says, by this nation's for-profit infertility industry. Wolf recently published a book on fertility and motherhood in contemporary America entitled Misconceptions.