Fertility Preservation
Many people find it surprising that individuals facing life-threatening illness want to explore and pursue their reproductive options. Physicians whose entire careers are devoted to prolongation of patients’ lives have a hard time understanding why fertility preservation is so important to many of their patients. As a result, they often fail to discuss it with their patients.
Often viewed as “optional” by comparison with the rest of medicine, reproduction is central to the evolution and survival of living organisms. Consequently, all species, including humans, are hard-wired to pursue reproduction. Thus from a broader biological point of view, the primacy of reproduction over survival of an individual is beyond dispute.
From a psychological point of view, fertility preservation offers a glimmer of hope to patients undergoing prolonged, painful and dangerous therapies for serious illnesses. Even experimental approaches, such as freezing of ovarian tissue, can provide a counterbalance to the depression which accompanies chronic illness and its treatment. Fertility preservation offers a window to the future for men and women whose present threatens to overwhelm them.