Apple to pay female employees up to $20,000 for new egg freezing fertility benefit

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  • Reply 101 of 173
    nolamacguynolamacguy Posts: 4,758member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by YvesVilleneuve View Post





    Why not just let their female employees be told that getting pregnant will not hurt their careers while the company invests in daycare and parent support of any kind?



    In addition, if you're going to freeze eggs then freeze the husband's sperm too.

     

    hmm, maybe because....tellling them that isn't true? 

     

    you don't need to freeze your sperm -- your sperm can make babies will into your senior years. duh.

  • Reply 102 of 173
    nolamacguynolamacguy Posts: 4,758member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by lightknight View Post

     



    I hope my words did not sound as a judgment of people, who like you, ended up having kids a bit late. I'm not judging, just expressing a mathematical statement ^^




    your "mathematical statement" is idiotic at best -- yes, having a child at 50 means you'll be 70 when that child is 20. math. but that has no bearing on the love or quality of the parent-child relationship. none. mathematically speaking.

  • Reply 103 of 173
    nolamacguynolamacguy Posts: 4,758member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by lightknight View Post

     



    An education starts being useful from day 1, actually.




    what? not if you get killed before graduating. really? do you need this explained to you?

  • Reply 104 of 173
    nolamacguynolamacguy Posts: 4,758member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by lightknight View Post

     



    Sounds exactly like the reasoning of people advocating for biological engineering for their offspring.

    Thankfully, until now, the State, which means, the collective wisdom of humans (hopefully, at least) has decided that unless there is serious medical benefits (solving a potential genetic illness), we're not going to play around with biological engineering.

     

    My opinion, worth exactly that and no more, but no less, is that we're having an identical moral conundrum here.

    Are "the women" (who may potentially be influenced by family or social pressure) the best people to decide, or should medical peers, or should legislators?

     

    I'm not bringing a solution, but I do believe there is a complicated question there.

     

    Also, in the end, no rule is done for "the women" or "the men". Rules are done for the benefit of the People, which is made up of men and women, as well as other types of people (if we're going this way, let's not forget anyone). Is a world where kids enjoy only 20 to 30 years of their parents's presence something beneficial to society? It seems like a social regression to me. My point, all in all, is double: first, rules are made for the good of the whole of society, not a particular subset (at least if they're done right), and second, leaving "women" or "men" or anyone totally free to choose is not a choice humans have made. Have you noticed that not everyone can drive a car, that planes are not landing where it pleases the pilot, that hard drugs are illegal almost everywhere apart from very strict medical situations?  We don't let people decide what is right and wrong in these situations. I may be missing something huge, but it seems to me babies, being the future of society, are on the grand scheme of things way more important than the occasional use of hard drugs, a Cessna landing on the Red Square or people deciding for themselves if driving is something they should do. Therefore, it should not be "women", but "society" that rules on this issue.

     

    However, I'm just human, and I'm possibly entirely wrong on this.




    my, what wonderful mental gymnastics. 10.

  • Reply 105 of 173
    pmzpmz Posts: 3,433member
    Women should be parenting in their 20s. 30s, the latest.

    So tired of this self righteous bullshit that has been programmed into woman to skip family life in favor of a job. A boring, meaningless money generating job.

    Don't kid yourself people, these women aren't aspiring to their dreams. They are getting jobs, like everyone else. Nothing special.

    Wanna do something really special? Be a parent. Be a mother, like you were designed to be.

    Freezing your eggs so you can spend your prime doing some bullshit job, and save that annoying inconvenience known as parenting for later in life? Fucking disgusting.
  • Reply 106 of 173
    dunksdunks Posts: 1,254member
    Tying healthcare benefits to employment is stupid. Access to healthcare should be a universal right regardless of employment status, with timely and free (or at the very least affordable) basic care for citizens. This is exactly this kind of reason why governments exist to leverage bulk purchasing power and centralised decision making to drive down costs.

    Privatising healthcare drives profit-based activities and leaves our most vulnerable to delay seeking treatment early, which amplifies the costs for individuals and society.
  • Reply 107 of 173
    pmz wrote: »
    Women should be parenting in their 20s. 30s, the latest.

    So tired of this self righteous bullshit that has been programmed into woman to skip family life in favor of a job. A boring, meaningless money generating job.

    Don't kid yourself people, these women aren't aspiring to their dreams. They are getting jobs, like everyone else. Nothing special.

    Wanna do something really special? Be a parent. Be a mother, like you were designed to be.

    Freezing your eggs so you can spend your prime doing some bullshit job, and save that annoying inconvenience known as parenting for later in life? Fucking disgusting.

    Um... That's really up to the woman, not you, not me, not anyone else.
  • Reply 108 of 173
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by dasanman69 View Post





    Creating a new life is seldom a bad idea. SJ wasn't born from an ideal situation.

     

    But, statistically, he's a blip. If the world was made of Steve Jobs, it would be... interesting and unbearable, I guess.

     

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Xian Zhu Xuande View Post





    The state does a poor job of representing its population. At least in the United States.



    But this has nothing to do with artificially creating a human in any context. It is about a woman choosing to preserve her option to have children through her own biologically generated eggs.





     No rule that a rule must necessarily reflect the best interests of society. We have numerous rules on the rulebooks that allow individuals rights and opportunities which can be quite damaging to their fellow man.



    And finally, a woman's decision to have a child a little later in life is not going to do harm to society on any appreciable scale.

    In four words: agreed, agreed, partially disagreed, partially agreed. For the latter two, it all comes down to "are these possibly harmful rules done possibly harmful because they were done wrong", and "how much later is a little later".

     

    All in all, some people seem to have brought very interesting and scientifically motivated answers to this thread after I went to sleep. I feel less stupid already ^^

  • Reply 109 of 173
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post





    Um... That's really up to the woman, not you, not me, not anyone else.



    I think he was not blaming the women. I read it as "companies and society, disgustingly manipulated by big money, are brainwashing women in having babies later because we scientifically can rather than fix society's differences, immorally abusing equality discourses to get women's rights advocates on their side". I may of course be misreading him because that's pretty much how I see think.

     

    Do not forget that in the 5 richer countries, the major advocates of "work as a social value" are all heirs to big fortunes. Anyone who advocates "the right to choose work over parenting/life/political engagement/whatever really" has in my eye a possible secret agenda. Call me nuts if you want <3

     

    Three examples, from my understanding of things, just in France and Italy: 

     

    - Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, from the Tedeschi family, heiress to the fortune created by the Italian tire manufacturing company CEAT

    - Laurence Parisot, 276th French family in fortune, leader of the entreprise movement and loud advocate of "work as a value"

    - Marine Le Pen, political enemy of the former, but heir to the Le Pen fortune, itself mainly built up of the Lambert family fortune (cement company)

     

    The existence of these highly influential people, pretending to be defending people and their rights, makes me extremely cautious whenever work gets "sold to me" over "what is usually considered as a reasonable way of life", whether that is correct or not.

     

    Apart from that, I perfectly understand why some women would want to be able to have babies a little later in life, but isn't the risk that very soon, those women who will want to have babies early will be "punished" socially, frowned upon, and forget about "women's right to have babies early"?

    To my opinion, and especially if I look at my own inability to have a baby right now even though I'm in my prime, and I should, medically speaking, be having a baby now, exclusively because my girlfriend would have to choose between a career and a baby, this looks like the bleak outset of this whole "women's right to choose should be pushed forward".

     

    I believe, it's not what's being pushed forward. It's the BigCorp's right to tell women they should have babies later that gets pushed forward, Or at least that's how I see things.

  • Reply 110 of 173
    This thread is useless without comment from actual women.
  • Reply 111 of 173
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post



    This thread is useless without comment from actual women.

    At least two real women replied already. Besides, do you need to be black to speak about race equality? It kind of sounds like it breaks the concept of equality to me, doesn't it to you?

     

    Anyway, I'm off to try and work. Make a career and hopefully be rich enough I can solve that small problem of male pregnancy, so we can all have an opinion on pregnancy and not be useless ;)

     

     

     

    Actually, come to think of it, that _is_ one thing I've always wondered about. What would happen if men could also make babies. Not sure if it would be a good thing, though.

  • Reply 112 of 173
    I would just like to say I have a lot of female friends (including family) who have had children later (i.e. 40's) and it seems that the risk of problems such as autism increases greatly when women are older. Yes people will slam me for saying this but it is true. No one wants to talk about it because it isn't fair and women have the right to focus on a career and later choose to have a family if they choose to do so. Well I am sorry but it is what it is. There is a reason that women over 35 are pushed to have an amnio. SO this is absurd. Apple is going way beyond what is reasonable. If they want to do something for women then increase the benefits for families NOT eggs.
  • Reply 113 of 173
    @solipsismx , charming. These are important issues and you're being...well, a jackov about it.
  • Reply 114 of 173
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by dacloo View Post

     

    Gender equality is bullshit.

    Males and females aren't equal.

     


     

    Gender Equality has never been about erasing the differences among the genders.  Clearly you have another agenda, or you're just that ignorant.

  • Reply 115 of 173

    This is getting ridiculous.

     

    I'm all for equal rights, but that goes for capabilities as well. Why can't we (everyone in the world I guess) judge people by their capabilities and not their gender or race? I mean, I completely agree that women are not always getting equal rights at companies while they should, but this is slowly starting to feel like women are getting móre rights than men with these kind of "benefits" of $20.000. That's the other side of extremity in my mind.

     

    If a *** (put gender or race here) is capable, they should get the same opportunity as anyone else. But that should be based on their intelligence and their match with the job. Giving *** (put gender or race here) a sum of money because of whatever reason basically flips the balance from 'no equality towards women' to 'no equality to men'

     

    If you choose a carreer you choose a carreer. Regardless of wether you're a man, woman, or anything in between. Butting in people's child-wishes is not the way. 

  • Reply 116 of 173
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    solipsismx wrote: »
    Why not?
    There are many good reasons. The health of everyone involved being a big one.

    Woman would be better off getting breeding done before or while in college. Then they can ignore their children and devote every minute of their life to work.
  • Reply 117 of 173
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    rot'napple wrote: »

    Sorry, that the nature of a lot of jobs...  military, yucky politicians, police, fire, rescue, long shore men, fishermen, heck even waiter/waitresses, et.al....

    Was your mom employed?  Mine was when she had me at 35.  Not sure of the length of maternity leave she had from work, but she managed to have a successful career and family without either her company or the government using "their" funds for the mere fact that she existed nor did my mother expected either her business or the government to be culpable to her needs.  You won't find too many people like that now a day!

    Hey is your mother single? You are right there aren't many like that anymore.
  • Reply 118 of 173
    solipsismx wrote: »
    Without population growth occurring in some way our species dies on this rock because resources are limited. Based on current technological abilities about 4 billion is the ideal for creating a long term homeostasis. I'm sure we'll increase efficiently to increase that number but all signs point to the population of the world growing much too faster to ever catch up with the current progress of technology.


    But this doesn't solve the problem of "who gets to decide who can have the babies". This sounds horribly like "the ones with the most guns" or "the ones with the highest tech". Anyway, higher tech is bigger guns, right? 

    Unless I'm very mistaken or have been brainwashed (always a possibility), "white man" has already done sterilization, forced or manipulated, on Indians, American Indians, Africans, and even, in the case of Switzerland, on ethnic or social groups which "did not fit in", such as Tzigans or misfits. This is why "Population Control" is fundamentally wrong. Tech will allow us to expand out of the planet if needed. Population Control will mean eugenism, suppression of "misfits", and sooner or later loss of democracy.

    solipsismx wrote: »
    I came up with this from reading. There are innumerable reports by every sovereign nation on the issue of resource need and resource renewal. Our growth rate is simply not sustainable under these conditions. Note that you'll see that ideal and peak population levels are based on a lot of soft data, as well as assumptions about "quality of life." Sustainable for the average person in India v average person in America v average person in Iceland you get vastly different results, but many things are constant, like depleting of ocean resources, reducing the salinization of the oceans, increased greenhouse gases, higher water levels, increased storms, etc., and yet the data for all those will only be hard in retrospect.



    TL;DR: We have finite resources and space at this time so it's foolish to believe we can continue on this path forever.
    solipsismx wrote: »
    I'm for generic screening for severe defects, stem cell research, contraception, euthanasia and measures for population growth control.

    [@]SolipsismX[/@] - I'm also of the same persuasion as you are with your entire statement... even the bolded quote which others are disputing.

    The problem is what measures and for whom and where in the world they should be promoted... and how to get those cultures or even our own(1) to understand the problem.

    My personal feelings is to leave it up to nature, similar to they way nature conservationists have decided to let nature take it's course rather than micro-managing wildlife populations.

    That is naturally an extremely controversial view, because it would mean containing conflicts and disease to allow nature to play it's hand out. Yes: I'm thinking wars and Ebola as recent population "control" policies. (I said it was controversial!)

    On the other hand, I'm a tolerant and have empathy for people experiencing pain and suffering only due to the place they were unfortunately born.

    My question: what are your views or links that you can provide that point to an acceptable and humane "measures for population control" discussion that are worthy of debate***?

    *** The debate so very often decends into claims of racism, or the true racists come out of the woodwork, to deem the debate almost impossible before it ever gets off the ground in many places. I'm asking Soli specifically because I value his opinion due to his strong basis in science and human psychology. Naturally anyone can reply, I'm just hoping that it doesn't include racist attacks.

    (1) It appears that for some time now peoples of European decent and Western cultures have done their part for population control, by becoming transfixed by "lifestyle" attitudes, that have placed career, possessions and pursuit of individual happiness ahead of family life. Which this entire topic thread is based on.
  • Reply 119 of 173
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,310moderator
    solipsismx wrote: »
    I have zero idea what you're getting at. It sounds like you're saying it's unfair that women shouldn't be able to decide when and where their bodies can be used as a host for new offspring without men being able to say what is right for them.

    No, not really what I mean.

    It's not about women not being able to decide, it's more about men not having any say about babies anymore, but all sorts of responsibilities inherited from the time where they had the power. Case in point, the ex-Minister for Justice in France, Rachida Dati, who had a baby with a man who apparently stated he did not want her to keep the baby. She had a legal right to have the baby, since it's her body. Fine by me. However, the Minister got the legal system to confirm the genetic father has to poney up for the education of the baby (which, by the way, is reasonably estimated at 3k€ a month. Just in case you wondered how much the legal system thinks a Minister's baby deserves).
    That's where it breaks, in my opinion.

    If you have the power to decide when and when you use your body to be a host, you should be alone to assume the consequences, unless the man has some power to say "no", or "yes". Currently, it is not the case, and the unfairness seems to me to have the power on one side and the responsibility on the other.
    The man has to realize if he's having sex with a woman, that a baby could result.

    There's another case here where a court ruled that oral sex counted as authorization for parental responsibility:

    http://www.nbcnews.com/id/7024930/ns/health-sexual_health/t/sperm-gift-keeps-giving/

    "Sperm: The 'gift' that keeps on giving

    Phillips accuses Dr. Sharon Irons of a “calculated, profound personal betrayal” after their affair six years ago, saying she secretly kept semen after they had oral sex, then used it to get pregnant.
    He said he didn’t find out about the child for nearly two years, when Irons filed a paternity lawsuit. DNA tests confirmed Phillips was the father, the court papers state.
    Phillips was ordered to pay about $800 a month in child support, said Irons’ attorney, Enrico Mirabelli.

    She asserts that when plaintiff 'delivered' his sperm, it was a gift — an absolute and irrevocable transfer of title to property from a donor to a donee,” the decision said. “There was no agreement that the original deposit would be returned upon request"."

    But a sperm donor doesn't have parental responsibility. I can see there being difficulty in proving the means of exchange but it sounds like she admitted doing it without his consent.

    One thing to be careful of with artificial methods used in pregnancy is the following story about a white gay couple who had their eggs fertilized with black male donor sperm by accident:

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/03/sperm-donot-lawsuit-racism-eugenics-lesbian-couple-black-donor

    There was a recent case in Italy where they mixed up the embryos of two childless couples and one gave birth to the other couple's child and wants to keep it:

    http://www.cmfblog.org.uk/2014/08/06/whose-baby-is-it-another-tragic-case-from-an-ivf-mix-up/

    You could have eggs frozen and then mislabelled and years later give birth to someone else's child, even a different race.
    solipsismx wrote:
    It's not because it's taboo, it's because it's a pejorative that has no basis in science to simply say "women are emotional" with an implication that men are not. People are emotional.

    You can be emotional by acting out aggressively rather than crying. There is also a lot of culture built into how the sexes are expected to react.

    There are plenty of videos of guys freaking out, too.

    Being aggressive and crying are completely different as one is an assertive emotion and the other defensive. You're right that it can be used as a put-down but I think that rather than outright dismissing the reality that women cry more, as studies have shown, by stating it's not true, the aim should be to accept it and not use it as an insult.

    The politically correct thing to say is that women don't cry more and people who point out that they do are insulting women.
    The actually correct thing to say is that women do cry more and men should accept that reality and not treat it as though it's a weakness or negative trait. It wasn't a bad thing when Steve Jobs cried about things he cared about so it should be the same for women.
    That said, why are there more female nurses than males? Why have males been more interested in coding? My guess is coding is more impersonal (less social). There are probably more male geeks than female geeks.

    Some jobs are intimate and (highlighting another difference between men and women) women are more modest about showing their bodies in general. There have been cases where female nurses have asked male nurses to leave the ward when female patients were getting dressed but the same isn't true in reverse. Female nurses have said that it felt really strange watching a male nurse catheterize a female patient - of course it would because it requires inserting objects into their sexual organs and although a female nurse would have to do that to a male patient, there's no equivalent sexual act for that. During sex, women don't insert things into men (usually).

    There are quite a few cases where male nurses have taken advantage of women:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2229645/Two-male-nurses-caught-camera-sexually-abusing-98-year-old-stroke-victim-paid-55-day-care-of.html
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2009591/Male-nurse-groped-patients-came-round-breast-enlargement-surgery.html
    http://news.yahoo.com/video/exclusive-woman-wakes-hospital-man-222520106.html
    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/pervert-paramedic-william-mitchell-admits-2913183
    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/Ward-boy-molests-women-in-post-operative-care-unit/articleshow/28764722.cms


    http://www.wdam.com/story/24943393/jail-time-for-a-male-nurse-who-groped-woman-in-labor
    http://deadspin.com/police-chad-gaudin-groped-a-woman-on-a-gurney-in-an-er-733976750
    http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/man-gropes-patient-er-article-1.1251235

    That's not to say that women would never do anything wrong:

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/pe-teachers-lesbian-affair-pupil-4172122
    http://news.yahoo.com/video/woman-24-impersonated-nurse-molested-225107432.html

    but I'd say the incidents would not only be less frequent but also less severe and less traumatising for patients:

    http://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/25/nyregion/woman-29-still-in-10-year-coma-is-pregnant-by-a-rapist.html
    if Apple pays one person 100K for a snowboarding accident and 3 months rehab in surgical and Short Term Disability
    Every employee should get 3 months off and 100K? Every Year?

    Fair is White people's 'I want mine' word. Fair is a 'balance the pain/reward' across all parties. It's a Fantasy of the American Dream

    The problem is, the real world isn't fair.

    That's pretty much the case. When there's talk about equal pay for equal work, things like maternity leave or working from home aren't brought into the discussion. Is it fair that a female worker choosing to have children should be able to have more flexible hours, take more maternity leave or be able to work from home if a guy doing the same job doesn't get those benefits? Companies can try to make everything as fair as possible but there's no escaping the fact that women are carrying the children.

    People take advantage of perks too much and don't behave responsibly so there's a difficult balance to draw. Women who find themselves single mothers are in a vulnerable situation trying to pay for bills but then you get people who see it as an easy life:

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mum-eight-says-more-children-4075693

    "A single mum of eight says she is planning to have more children - so she can claim more benefits and get a bigger council house.
    Ms Buchan now needs a hysterectomy, but says she will use a surrogate in order to have two more babies.

    She said that having 10 children would allow her to claim more benefits, which could add an extra £70 a week to the state handouts she already receives.
    Ms Buchan, who currently costs taxpayers £2,200 a month or £26,400 a year, would then also then be in line for a five bedroom council house.

    She told Closer magazine: “I was devastated when doctors told me I couldn’t have more. I love being pregnant and surrounded by kids.
    “If I can’t have more babies myself, the next best thing would be to use a surrogate.
    “I’ll get more benefits too - it’s easy to claim off the state. People might criticise me, but it’s my right to have as many children as I want.”

    When women stand up and say it's their right to make choices about their bodies, people applaud and agree that it's right. But then you get all the mix ups with artificial pregnancy methods, having children without the father's consent, purposely being a burden on the state. As with pretty much everything, it's about finding the right balance that has the best and most sustainable outcome.

    Offering the option to delay pregnancy sounds like a great thing because what's wrong with options? If it encourages women to do that and it ends up with higher rates of birth defects or mixups then that could ultimately have a more negative effect, the same way that increasing welfare/benefits inadvertently encourages people into using them more. I think actively discouraging some things while making them available would be the best route e.g you can still buy some cigarettes but they'll kill you; having a baby later in life is an option but there are greatly increased risks so choose responsibly. But it's hard to publicly discourage things because then you get called up for discrimination.
  • Reply 120 of 173
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post







    ^ brilliant post

     

     

    About the fairness and materiality leave, some countries have paternity leave, which allows expecting fathers to assist their wife. In the case of gay couples, I have no clue how exactly it works, however, but in the general scheme of things, I believe it should be mandatory. If your wife is pregnant, when she needs to pause her job, you need to pause yours. End of gender differentiation. Might start some new issues, such as employers demanding you be single, but that should be an illegal criteria for employment.

     

    Also, I think this is fitting here:  even though I have to apologise, it is French.

     

    Text of the original poem by Louis Aragon dates back to 1963, and the song itself heralds to 1975. How much our world has changed.

     

    "Woman is the future of man."

     

    Brilliant minds and poets both, with strong leftist beliefs and immense respect for women. 

     

    "Somewhere between old and new, your fight on every level is from ours inseparable 

    Among men who make laws, some sing through my song and others decree through the Bible"

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