The first birth from a donated egg was reported in Australia in 1984, ushering in a new era of possibilities for the treatment of infertility (1). Since then egg donation has undergone a number of technical, regulatory and commercial transformations. Its use by a growing and diverse range of social groups and more recently the dawn of advanced freezing technologies, have reconfigured the process. Given the transformation in its organisation and practice, there is a pressing need to map these changes in finer detail and to ask critical questions about the continued fit of existing policy and regulation in this rapidly developing landscape of fertility medicine. In this paper we present a 'critical reflection' (2) on developing practices in egg donation, which we suggest are reshaping the character of egg donation as well as raising questions regarding their implications for policy. We highlight a number of policy 'blind-spots' relating specifically to information giving and informed consent for egg providers, the emergence and entry of a range of intermediaries and a shift towards certain practices which may see eggs increasingly treated as tradable commodities. We call for a re-contextualising of the debate on egg donation and for renewed attention to the new political economy of egg donation in Europe.
IVF treatment involving donated eggs increases yearly.Numerous technical and commercial transformations have reshaped how eggs are retrieved, stored and managed. A key transformation is vitrification; a 'fast freezing' method that allows efficient preservation of eggs, and therefore more flexibility in use, giving rise to new commercial possibilities. There has been limited focus on egg providers' experiences in the context of vitrification and related commercialisation. We report findings from a study in the UK, Spain and Belgium, where we interviewed 75 egg providers. Comparing experiences within different donation 'regimes' allows an exploration of how varying national practices and policies shape information-giving and women's experiences. In the UK, a system of 'informed gift-giving' was described, where egg providers saw their actions as not-for-profit and felt relatively well informed. In Belgium, the system was presented as 'trusted tissue exchange': with less information-giving than in the UK, but clinics were trusted to act responsibly. In Spain, a 'closed-door, market-driven' system was described, whereby egg providers received little information and
The Spanish reproductive bioeconomy has bloomed in the last few decades. There are now over three hundred fertility clinics in Spain, which has become one of the main destinations for what is often called "reproductive tourism" in the European context. The phenomenon of assisted reproduction has been extensively studied within English-speaking countries of the global North, but not so much in the cluster of Spanish-speaking countries, with a few interesting exceptions. Following the invitation to collaborate in this special issue around reproduction in Latin America and Spain, we offer an analysis of how Spanish oocyte provision and domestic work function as part of global care chains (GCC). We will compare the results of two major projects: one focusing on domestic work and the other on egg donation programs, both in Spain. We will introduce different perspectives around care and GCC, discussing how transference of oocytes can be viewed as a type of feminized labor involving affective-care work, clinical work, and biological work. The framework of GCC, a concept used to unpack unjust power relations embedded in transferences of care in current neoliberal and globalized socioeconomic arrangements, can help to enable a conversation on how transferences of reproductive capacity might be reinforcing the stratification of reproduction. Cadeias (globais) de cuidados em tempos de crise: doação de óvulos e emprego doméstico na Espanha RESUMO A bioeconomia reprodutiva espanhola cresceu significativamente nas últimas décadas com a abertura de mais de trezentas clínicas de fertilidade em todo o país e se tornou, no contexto Europeu, um dos principais destinos do chamado "turismo reprodutivo." Embora o fenômeno da reprodução assistida tenha sido amplamente estudado nos países de língua inglesa do norte global, ele não tem sido devidamente analisado no mundo de língua espanhola, com exceções muito interessantes, mas poucas. Neste artigo, gostaríamos de aproveitar a oportunidade, surgida através do convite para colaborar nesta edição especial sobre reprodução na América Latina e na Espanha, para oferecer uma KEYWORDS Spanish reproductive bioeconomy; eggs-öocytes; transference of reproductive capacity-TRCs; assisted reproductive technologies-ARTs; global care chains PALAVRAS-CHAVE Bioeconomia reprodutiva espanhola; óvulos; transferências de capacidade reprodutiva; cadeias globais de cuidado; reprodução assistida PALABRAS CLAVE Bioeconomía reproductiva española; óvulos; transferencia de capacidad reproductiva (TCR); Cadenas globales de cuidados (CGC); tecnologías de reproducción asistida
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