资助女性员工冷冻和储存卵子 硅谷推动"怀孕革命"

Facebook and Apple are hoping to boost their appeal to female staff and applicants with the new perk of financial assistance in freezing eggs and storing them for future use. While not all women are convinced by financial incentives to delay pregnancy, the perk, from companies with a proven record of family-friendly benefits, will be welcomed by many as expanding their life choices.

脸书（Facebook）和苹果（Apple）推出了一项新福利——资助女性员工冷冻和储存卵子，希望借此提升它们对女性员工和应聘者的吸引力。尽管并非所有女性都会因为有了资助而决定推迟怀孕生子，但这项福利将受到许多女性的欢迎，因为它扩大了她们的人生选择范围。这两家公司早因推出有益于员工家庭生活的福利政策而闻名。

But the offer does raise complex moral issues. For example, given Apple’s ferocious commitment to ever-improving devices and software updates, will an Apple-frozen egg still be compatible with its mother after a couple of years of new product releases? Should a Facebook employee friend her frozen eggs and post pictures of them on her news feed? This will improve and extend maternal bonding with frozen eggs, or fridge magnets as they will be known.

但这项政策确实引发了复杂的道德问题。比如说，考虑到苹果对产品和软件升级换代的不懈追求，苹果冷冻的卵子经过几年的新产品发布之后能否仍和母体兼容？Facebook的员工是不是得在Facebook上跟她的冷冻卵子成为“好友”，并把它们的照片贴出来？这会改善和增进她们与自己的冷冻卵子——或者越来越熟悉的冰箱贴——之间的母子关系。

But these are mere conundrums and, like the perk itself, something a smart woman can decide on for herself. The bigger issue is that, given Silicon Valley’s commitment to fast technological advance to solve the world’s problems, egg-freezing may soon seem decidedly last century. The Financial Times has given itself a sneak peak at the other experimental technologies coming down the track to revolutionise parenthood.

不过，这只不过是些小难题，就跟这项福利本身一样，聪明的女性能够自己解答或决定是否接受。更大的问题在于，考虑到硅谷致力于加快技术进步、以解决世界的问题，卵子冷冻或许很快将被视为应该淘汰的技术。英国《金融时报》大致搜罗了一下其他一些能够颠覆生育方式的实验性科技。

A notable omission from the list of businesses offering ex-utero benefits is Google but fans of the search giant should not fear its entry into the process. Some of its most brilliant engineers, working at the pioneering Google Eggs laboratory, will shortly unveil a range of solutions designed to slow and eventually erase the biological clock. The first project goes beyond freezing and storage to tackle some of the underlying issues.

引人注目的是，我们没有在提供取卵福利的企业名单上看到谷歌(Google)的名字，但粉丝们不必担心谷歌会置身事外。谷歌的一些最有才华的工程师正在开创性的谷歌卵子(Google Eggs)实验室里工作，他们将很快公布一系列旨在延长生育年龄、并最终消除生育年龄限制的解决方案。该实验室的第一个项目超越了卵子冷冻和储存，着眼于解决一些根本性问题。

One long-term solution being secretly studied by Google labs is Driverless Eggs. Silicon Valley has long been frustrated by a number of inefficiencies in the fertilisation process, including the monthly product cycle which ties women (and men) down to a small window of opportunity and wastes three weeks in every four to downtime. Given in-vitro fertilisation advances, Google feels it may be time to take the next step – full-term in-vitro pregnancy. Gestation outside the womb would free female staff from inefficiencies such as morning sickness, stretch marks, early maternity leave and all those tiresome ultrasounds.

谷歌实验室正在秘密研究的一种长期解决方案是“无母卵子”(Driverless Eggs)。长期以来，硅谷对生育过程中的几个低效之处感到苦恼，其中包括女性每月只排卵一次——这将女性（以及男性）的生育机会限制在一个很小的时间窗口，每4周里只有1周能够孕育新生命，其余3周都浪费了。鉴于试管受精技术已经取得一些进展，谷歌觉得现在或许是时候走出下一步，尝试完全的试管妊娠了。在人体子宫外孕育生命，能够让女性员工免除晨吐、妊娠纹、产假以及超声波检查等无意义的烦恼。

Google has also honed in on another reason why women may want egg freezing – namely that they have not yet found the right partner. Google Dadsense may be the answer. It goes beyond dating apps such as Tinder or , using a new SpermMatch algorithm to search for suitable fathers; the most desirable partner being, obviously, a well-paid technologist. Male Googlers will be incentivised to offer their quality genes to female colleagues, something that does happen now, but only at the weekly barbecues and volleyball matches and is too low-tech to be a sustainable population solution.

谷歌还着眼于女性可能希望冷冻卵子的另一个原因，即她们尚未找到合适的伴侣。Google Dadsense可能会解决这个问题。它超越了Tinder或等交友应用，利用新的SpermMatch算法寻找合适的父亲；显然，最理想的伴侣是收入颇丰的技术专家。谷歌男员工将被鼓励与女同事结合，这种情况现在已经出现，但仅限于每周的烧烤和排球比赛上，而且技术含量很低，无法成为一种可持续的人口解决方案。

Obviously mindful of the concerns around gene tampering, there are no plans at this stage to tamper with the genetic make-up of fertilised eggs, although they may be screened for predispositions towards serious disease or the Republican party.

显然，由于顾虑到围绕基因改变的种种担忧，目前还没有人计划改变受精卵的基因构成，不过，受精卵可能受到筛查，以查出是否有患上严重疾病或成为共和党的倾向。

Tech companies will also look to build greater connectivity with the frozen ovum. The technology is still in its infancy but few doubt that once freezing has become widespread, the internet of eggs will happen.

科技公司还将研究如何与冷冻卵子建立更密切的互联。这项技术尚处在初期，但几乎无人质疑这点：一旦冷冻技术普及，卵子互联网将出现。

Driverless babies and toddlers may still be some way off. One Googler said Aldous Huxley’s utopian vision remained a fond and distant dream.

通过自动化程序产下婴儿和抚育幼儿可能尚需时日。谷歌一名员工表示，阿道斯•赫胥黎(Aldous Huxley)的乌托邦远景仍是一个美好但遥远的梦。

Banks are also looking at driverless eggs, but are examining whether bonuses could be used to incentivise the ovum towards self-reliance.

银行也在关注“无母卵子”，但它们正在考察能否通过设立奖金来鼓励让卵子自动受精的研究。

Of course different companies will come up with alternative solutions. Microsoft is planning to offer the perk but only to women who don’t ask for it as it will be delivered by karma. Ebay is modelling Eggschange – a clearing house for surplus ova.

当然，不同的公司将提出不同的解决方案。微软(Microsoft)也在计划提供冷冻卵子福利，但只提供给那些不主动要求的女性，因为它是按“缘分”发放。Ebay正打造“卵子交易所”(Eggschange)，一个针对多余卵子的清算机构。

Amazon, meanwhile, is taking a different tack, focusing more on the logistics of gestation. Jeff Bezos sees the nine-month shipping rule as ripe for technological disruption and has committed the company to same-day delivery. He is also experimenting with drone delivery and recently purchased several thousand delivery drones, refitted to resemble storks.

与此同时，亚马逊(Amazon)则在采行不同的路线，该公司更关注怀孕物流。杰夫•贝索斯(Jeff Bezos)认为在技术上打破9个月妊娠期规律的时机已经成熟，他承诺亚马逊将推出“当日送达”快递服务。他还在试验无人机送货，他最近收购了数千架送货无人机，把它们重新改装成了类似鹳鸟（在西方，鹳鸟有送子之意）的样子。