Have Eggs, Will Travel: The Experiences and Ethics of Global Egg Donation

Somatechnics ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Kroløkke
Keyword(s):  
Cluster Analysis ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
Egg Donation ◽  
Photographic Material ◽  
Egg Donor ◽  
Egg Donors

Feminist scholars have critically questioned the practices and ethics of reproductive mobility. While the reproductive mobility of fertility patients has been foregrounded, little is known of egg donor mobility including the experiences of travelling internationally to donate eggs. Based on written stories and photographic material provided by forty-two egg donors, this article uses feminist cluster analysis and the concept of eggpreneurship to illustrate how global egg donors negotiate reproductive agency and choice when they travel internationally to donate their eggs. In their stories, global egg donors position egg donation through a moral economy of gifting and an affective economy of desire in which reproductive mobility is transformed from a gift to a trip of a lifetime.

Egg Donation and Exotic Beauty

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daisy Deomampo
Keyword(s):  
Skin Color ◽  
Skin Tone ◽  
Egg Donation ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Indian Women ◽  
Egg Donor ◽  
Egg Donors ◽  
Donor Egg ◽  
Biological Race ◽  
Racial Hierarchies

Chapter 3 analyzes constructions of skin color and race in intended parents’ narratives about the experience of selecting an egg donor. This chapter shows how egg donors of different backgrounds are differently valued, bolstering social hierarchies. At the same time, the chapter describes the diversity of ways that intended parents approach race and skin tone when choosing an egg donor. In contrast to dominant assumptions that intended parents seek donors who match their own ethnic backgrounds in order to reproduce whiteness, the process of egg donation represented an opportunity for many intended parents to subvert racial hierarchies by selecting Indian donors with darker skin tones. The chapter argues that such narratives, however, misrecognize donor egg selection as an opening to challenge racial hierarchies; instead, such decisions rely on essentialized notions of race and beauty that exoticize Indian women and reflect new articulations of biological race.

scholarly journals Does egg donation for mitochondrial replacement techniques generate parental responsibilities?

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (12) ◽  
pp. 817-822 ◽  
Author(s):  
César Palacios-González
Keyword(s):  
Mitochondrial Dna ◽  
Nuclear Dna ◽  
Mitochondrial Diseases ◽  
Egg Donation ◽  
Genetic Composition ◽  
Numerical Identity ◽  
Egg Donor ◽  
Egg Donors ◽  
Mitochondrial Replacement Techniques

Children created through mitochondrial replacement techniques (MRTs) are commonly presented as possessing 50% of their mother’s nuclear DNA, 50% of their father’s nuclear DNA and the mitochondrial DNA of an egg donor. This lab-engineered genetic composition has prompted two questions: Do children who are the product of an MRT procedure have three genetic parents? And, do MRT egg donors have parental responsibilities for the children created? In this paper, I address the second question and in doing so I also address the first one. First, I present a brief account of mitochondrial diseases and MRTs. Second, I examine how MRTs affect the numerical identity of eggs and zygotes. Third, I investigate two genetic accounts of parenthood and MRT egg donation. Fourth, I explore three causal accounts of parenthood and MRT egg donation. My conclusion is that, under the appropriate circumstances, MRT egg donors are parentally responsible for the children created under genetic accounts of parenthood and under causal accounts of parenthood.

scholarly journals Finding the “Appropriate Distance” in Egg Donor Kinship Relations

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 136-170
Author(s):  
Matilde Lykkebo Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Legal Framework ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Egg Donation ◽  
Egg Donor ◽  
Kinship Relations ◽  
Egg Donors ◽  
Third Party Reproduction ◽  
Normative Constraints ◽  
Kinship Relation ◽  
Normative Ideals

This article explores kinship formation from the perspective of egg donors in Denmark. Through interviews with Danish egg donors, it investigates how the Danish legal framework and specific context, materialise egg donor kinship relations in third party reproduction. The article shows the ways egg donors negotiate normative ideals about family and motherhood through different kinship strategies. It argues that the donors’ relational kinship work is a form of social pioneering work, wherein donors help define what an egg donor kinship relation is and can be. This is analysed through the analytical concept of “appropriate distance.” The analysis shows how different normative constraints are embedded in the legal framework that structure which kinship relations are available. As an example, the different donor types in Denmark, anonymous, open, and known, become a way of disconnecting or connecting to kinship. In line with existing studies, it demonstrates how egg donation in Denmark is structured around ideals of altruism linked to normative ideals of femininity and motherhood. Further, it is concluded that egg donation proposes subversive potential for deconstructing heteronormative kinship ideals about motherhood. At the same time, however, the analyses conclude that heteronormative family ideals often are re-installed through egg donation practices.

The Woman or the Egg?

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Reproductive Medicine ◽  
Reproductive Technologies ◽  
Egg Donor ◽  
Egg Donors ◽  
Scientific Discourses ◽  
American Society ◽  
Scientific Debates

This chapter contextualizes the shifting popular and scientific discourses of race since the mid-twentieth century by analyzing databases of egg donors and surrogates created by agencies to connect intended parents with the women who provide these services. Selected from a list curated by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association, agencies are contrasted based on their representation of traits like the race and ethnicity of surrogates and egg donors. Reproductive technologies demonstrate that despite scientific debates, race-based medicines continue to promote and reflect a popular understanding of distinct biological races. Thus, the egg donor and surrogacy databases built by ART clinics reflect often-unspoken assumptions about race and heritability.

scholarly journals Constructions of surrogates, egg donors, and mothers: Swedish gay fathers’ narratives

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 508-528
Author(s):  
Anna Malmquist ◽  
Sonja Höjerström
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Function ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Surrogate Mother ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Close Family Member ◽  
Gay Fathers ◽  
Discursive Analysis ◽  
Egg Donor ◽  
Egg Donors ◽  
Close Family

The study explored in detail how Swedish gay fathers (through surrogacy) talked about the surrogate mother and the egg donor. Thirteen semi-structured interviews with 22 gay fathers were conducted and analysed using critical discursive analysis. The surrogates were primarily constructed as a close family member, but occasionally in terms of their instrumental function. They were often described as active and independent, but occasionally as vulnerable or exploited. The egg donors were in some interviews constructed as close family members, while others talked about them as distant acquaintances. Further, donors were constructed either as a significant individual (for the fathers), or as an instrumental provider of the oocyte. While some participants constructed the surrogate and/or donor as their child’s mother(s), others were more reluctant or ambivalent about the mother construct. In conclusion, the participants engaged in rhetorical work that shed a positive light on surrogacy, and their own decisions were depicted as solid, ethical and genuine. The participants’ positive framing can be understood as the production of a counter discourse, in relation to an ongoing debate in Sweden, in which surrogacy is constructed as exploitation, dehumanization and prostitution.

scholarly journals “It’s a Trash”: Poetic Responses to the Experiences of a Mexican Egg Donor

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather L. Walmsley ◽  
Susan Cox ◽  
Carl Leggo
Keyword(s):  
Single Mother ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Egg Donation ◽  
Egg Donor ◽  
Mexican Woman ◽  
Aesthetic Inquiry ◽  
Fertility Clinic ◽  
Reproductive Tourism ◽  
Found Poetry

This paper explores the use of found poetry as interpretive and aesthetic inquiry into the meaning and experience of reproductive tourism. The context is an ethnographic study of transnational egg donation, focusing upon the fertility services industry in Cancun, Mexico. Our source is an audio-recorded interview conducted with Maria, a young Mexican woman who struggles to maintain her integrity as a single mother donating eggs to a fertility clinic. Drawing upon Maria’s story, we experiment with three forms of found poetry as a method for listening deeply to her voice. In this paper, we share our research process, poems, and reflections.

scholarly journals Is Information Power? Comparing Anonymous and Open Egg Donation

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Speier
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Czech Republic ◽  
Assisted Reproductive Technologies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Reproductive Technologies ◽  
Fertility Treatment ◽  
Egg Donation ◽  
Gamete Donation ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Egg Donor

Both the Czech Republic and the United States are destinations for cross-border reproductive travellers. For North Americans, including Canadians, who opt to travel to the Czech Republic for IVF using an egg donor, they are entering a fertility industry that is anonymous. This makes the Czech Republic different from other European countries that necessitate open gamete donation, as in Austria, Germany and the United Kingdom. For reproductive travellers coming to the United States for fertility treatment, there is a wider menu of choices regarding egg donation given the vastly unregulated nature of the industry. More recently, professionals in the industry are pushing for ‘open’ egg donation. For intended parents traveling to either location seeking in vitro fertilization using an egg donor, they must choose whether or not to pursue open or closed donation. As pre-conception parents, they navigate competing discourses of healthy parenting of donor-conceived offspring. They must be reflexive about their choices, and protective when weighing their options, always keeping their future child's mental, physical and genetic health in mind. Drawing from ethnographic data collected over the course of six years in the United States and the Czech Republic, this paper will explore both programs, paying special attention to the question of how gamete donation and global assisted reproductive technologies intersect with different notions about healthy pre-conception parenting.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
pp. 191-216
Author(s):  
Erin Heidt-Forsythe
Keyword(s):  
Technology Policy ◽  
Reproductive Technology ◽  
Egg Donation ◽  
Political Subjectivity ◽  
Gender And Politics ◽  
Egg Donors

This chapter concludes the book by providing a brief overview of the theoretical arguments, data, methods, and findings of this book. I argue that the “lady vanishes” in gender and politics around egg donation, obscuring the importance of political subjectivity of egg donors, as well as the relevance of gendered representation to analyses of reproductive technology policy. In this chapter, I argue for three major avenues of research: egg donors as political subjects, feminist policy and gendered representation, and states as “laboratories of democracy” for federal egg-donation policy. This chapter concludes that through these avenues, the politics of egg donation have a more democratic future.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document