The Hidden Cost of Fertility Treatment on Women’s Careers

Caroline Biddle thought she was doing the right thing when she opened up to her employer about her need for fertility treatment. Then she got her next paycheck and saw her salary had been docked for every time she had attended an appointment. Even more shocking, Biddle thought, her employer—a high school near Birmingham, England—wasn’t breaking any rules.

The law in the UK, like in most places, doesn’t afford any protection to people who take time out of work for in vitro fertilization, a process that can involve dozens of unpredictable appointments for scans, blood tests and procedures, alongside self-administered hormone injections that commonly cause mood swings, ...