Freezing Fertility: Oocyte Cryopreservation and the Gender Politics of Aging

Lucy van de Wiel

Published by New York University Press 2020

Freezing Fertility

Oocyte Cryopreservation and the Gender Politics of Aging

Lucy van de Wiel

Volume 22 in the series Biopolitics

https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479868148.001.0001

Overview
Contents

About this book

Analyzes how the possibility of egg freezing changes what it means to be fertile and to age in the 21st century

Welcomed as liberation and dismissed as exploitation, egg freezing (oocyte cryopreservation) has rapidly become one of the most widely-discussed and influential new reproductive technologies of this century. In Freezing Fertility, Lucy van de Wiel takes us inside the world of fertility preservation—with its egg freezing parties, contested age limits, proactive anticipations and equity investments—and shows how the popularization of egg freezing has profound consequences for the way in which female fertility and reproductive aging are understood, commercialized and politicized.

Beyond an individual reproductive choice for people who may want to have children later in life, Freezing Fertility explores how the rise of egg freezing also reveals broader cultural, political and economic negotiations about reproductive politics, gender inequities, age normativities and the financialization of healthcare. Van de Wiel investigates these issues by analyzing a wide range of sources—varying from sparkly online platforms to heart-breaking court cases and intimate autobiographical accounts—that are emblematic of each stage of the egg freezing procedure. By following the egg’s journey, Freezing Fertility examines how contemporary egg freezing practices both reflect broader social, regulatory and economic power asymmetries and repoliticize fertility and aging in ways that affect the public at large. In doing so, the book explores how the possibility of egg freezing shifts our relation to the beginning and end of life.

Author / Editor information

van de WielLucy:

Lucy van de Wiel is a Research Associate in the Reproductive Sociology Research Group (ReproSoc) at the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. She is also a Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute in London.Lucy van de Wiel is a Research Associate in the Reproductive Sociology Research Group (ReproSoc) at the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. She is also a Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute in London.

Reviews

Lisa Jean Moore, author of Catch and Release: The Enduring Yet Vulnerable Horseshoe Crab:
Lucy van de Wiel’s Freezing Fertility brilliantly investigates fertile embodiment through a transnational exploration of human fertility preservation practices. Egg freezing, a recent biotechnological innovation, enhances corporeal capacities and transforms the temporality of everyday life. Her germinal analysis offers powerful interpretations of emerging cultural anxieties when we interrupt the imperative of ‘a biological clock’.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Making Fertility Precarious: Egg Freezing and the Politicization of Reproductive Aging Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
2. Freezing in Anticipation: Fertility Planning with Eggs for Later Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	60
3. Frozen Eggs and the Financialization of Fertility: Distributing Reproductive Aging in the Reproductive- Industrial Complex Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	88
4. Aging Embryos and Viable Rhythms: The Visualization and Commercialization of Time- Lapse Embryo Selection Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	119
5. Postfertile Conceptions: Egg Freezing and the Reinvention of Older Motherhood Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	143
6. Oocyte Futures: The Global Flow of Frozen Eggs Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	180
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	217
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	237
Glossary Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	243
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	279
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	321
About the Author Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	335