First, a cancer diagnosis. Then a split-second decision about fertility.

Kamilla Linder, 34, a self-employed language teacher in Santa Cruz, California, was able to freeze her eggs in October 2023 with financial help from several nonprofits. But her treatment will likely include five to 10 years of the estrogen-blocking drug tamoxifen, and Ms. Linder, who is currently single, worries about when and how she will turn those eggs into embryos.

While there is a growing number of studies suggests it is safe to take a break from such hormone therapies to get pregnant, she cannot shake the feeling that something has been taken from her.

“I’m afraid I won’t have any children at all,” she said.

This feeling has become increasingly common since the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in late February, says Allie Brumel, co-founder of a nonprofit organization for people affected by breast and gynecological cancer called The Breasties. She has heard from many community members concerned about what this means for their own frozen eggs and embryos.

“Those eggs on ice are my only option to have a biological child,” says Lindsey Baker, 39, a nonprofit counselor in Tucson, Arizona, who opted to have her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed in 2022 after experiencing the had completed active treatment for phase 2. breast cancer. “It is heartbreaking to think about the consequences of the politics that deprive me of that, when I have already lost so much to cancer at the age of thirty.”

Taking back some control

When Trish Michelle, 45, of Queens, NY, was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer in 2016, “no one, not once, brought up fertility,” she said. Ms. Michelle, who was 37 and already a mother of two teenagers, quickly made the decision not to pursue it, a choice she often regrets. “At that moment you are fighting for your life, you have to quickly assess what is most important.”