1
|
Mutlu B. Strategic In/Visibility of Turkish Egg Donors: Reproductive Labor, Secrecy, and Stigma in the Transnational Bioeconomy. Med Anthropol 2024:1-17. [PMID: 38771727 DOI: 10.1080/01459740.2024.2355959] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/23/2024]
Abstract
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a Northern Cypriot clinic, I examine how practices of secrecy function as strategic tools for invisibilization in the lived realities of Turkish egg donors engaged in an illicit, gendered, and stigmatized form of reproductive labor, both within and across national borders. Combining feminist studies of reproductive labor with an analysis of secrecy, stigma, and dirty work, I adopt a notion of secrecy as an embodied social practice to explore ethnographically how secrecy is integral to the bioavailability of Turkish egg donors. Secret practices enable these young women to intimately navigate gendered moral, health, socio-legal, and financial concerns within the challenging wider context of restrictive reproductive biopolitics, a legally ambigious cross-border biomedical market, fragile socio-economic conditions, and a heteropatriarchal sexual culture in Turkey. For Turkish egg donors, who opt for strategic invisibilization, moral and financial concerns sometimes override health and legal considerations. Secrecy sustains this transnational bioeconomy while simultaneously concealing its exploitative harms and risks.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Burcu Mutlu
- Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Ozyegin University, Istanbul, Turkey
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Tober D, Pavone V, Lafuente-Funes S, Konvalinka N. Eggonomics: Vitrification and bioeconomies of egg donation in the United States and Spain. Med Anthropol Q 2023; 37:248-263. [PMID: 37229598 DOI: 10.1111/maq.12767] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/10/2020] [Accepted: 03/13/2023] [Indexed: 05/27/2023]
Abstract
Regulations governing assisted reproduction control the degree to which gamete donation is legal and how people providing genetic material are selected and compensated. The United States and Spain are both global leaders in fertility treatment with donor oocytes. Yet both countries take different approaches to how egg donation is regulated. The US model reveals a hierarchically organized form of gendered eugenics. In Spain, the eugenic aspects of donor selection are more subtle. Drawing upon fieldwork in the United States and Spain, this article examines (1) how compensated egg donation operates under two regulatory settings, (2) the implications for egg donors as providers of bioproducts, and (3) how advances in oocyte vitrification enhances the commodity quality of human eggs. By comparing these two reproductive bioeconomies we gain insight into how different cultural, medical, and ethical frameworks intersect with egg donor embodied experiences.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Diane Tober
- Department of Anthropology and Institute for Social Science Research, University of Alabama, 19 Ten Hoor Hall, Tuscaloosa, AL, 35487, United States
- Affiliate faculty, Social and Behavioral Sciences University of California, San Francisco
| | - Vincenzo Pavone
- Institute of Public Goods and Policies, Spanish National Research Council, Calle Albesanz, 26-28, Madrid, 28037, Spain
| | - Sara Lafuente-Funes
- Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 6, 60323, Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt, Germany
| | - Nancy Konvalinka
- Departamento Antropología Social y Cultural, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Calle Senda del Rey, 7, 28040, Madrid, Spain
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Mutlu B. Between Solidarity and Conflict: Tactical Biosociality of Turkish Egg Donors. Cult Med Psychiatry 2023; 47:684-700. [PMID: 35768675 DOI: 10.1007/s11013-022-09798-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 06/05/2022] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews conducted with Turkish egg donors at a Northern Cypriot clinic, this article investigates tactical biosociality of cross-border egg donors that allows them to manage social relations and orient themselves in transnational egg donation (including the processes from recruitment to self-management in and beyond the clinic) under legally restrictive and socially stigmatizing conditions. Addressing the social and collective dimensions of tactics and recognizing the fragmented and conflictual forms of biosociality, it aims to shed light on the complex and ambivalent aspects of tactical biosociality in relation to selective disclosure and stigma within the context of transnational egg donation. Tactical biosociality involves possibilities for solidarity and alliances, and also for conflict and competition among egg donors. It is because for young Turkish women, egg donation retains both gendered moral and financial values that must be tactically negotiated while navigating the wider context of heteropatriarchal cultural norms and expectations, precarious economic and social conditions, biomedical profit and biopolitical control.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Burcu Mutlu
- Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Istanbul Ozyegin University, Cekmekoy Campus Nisantepe District, Orman Street, 34794, Cekmekoy, Istanbul, Turkey.
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Moll T, Gerrits T, Hammarberg K, Manderson L, Whittaker A. Reproductive travel to, from and within sub-Saharan Africa: A scoping review. REPRODUCTIVE BIOMEDICINE & SOCIETY ONLINE 2022; 14:271-288. [PMID: 35419496 PMCID: PMC8907603 DOI: 10.1016/j.rbms.2021.12.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/09/2021] [Revised: 11/26/2021] [Accepted: 12/09/2021] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
Scholarly interest in reproductive travel has increased in recent years, but travel within, to and from the African continent has received much less attention. We reviewed the literature on cross-border reproductive travel to and from countries of sub-Saharan Africa in order to understand the local forms of this trade. Access to fertility care remains deeply stratified, which is an ongoing concern in a region with some of the highest rates of infertility. We found a wide variety of reasons for reproductive travel, including a lack of trusted local clinics. Destinations were chosen for reasons including historical movements for medical treatment broadly, diasporic circulations, pragmatic language reasons, and ties of former colonial relations. We describe the unique tempos of treatment in the region, ranging from some intended parents staying in receiving countries for some years to the short-term contingent support networks that reprotravellers develop during their treatment and travel. Unique to the region is the movement of medical professionals, such as the 'fly-in, fly-out' clinic staff to deliver fertility care. Future research should include practices and movements to presently neglected 'reprohubs', particularly Kenya and Nigeria; the impact of pandemic-related lockdowns and border closures on the movements of intended parents, reproductive assistors and reproductive material; and the impact of low-cost protocols on treatment access within the region. This scoping review provides insight into the relevant work on cross-border reproductive care in sub-Saharan Africa, where a unique combination of access factors, affordability, and sociocultural and geopolitical issues fashion individuals' and couples' cross-border reproductive travel within, to and from Africa.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Tessa Moll
- School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand, Parktown, South Africa
| | - Trudie Gerrits
- Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Karin Hammarberg
- School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
- Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | - Lenore Manderson
- School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand, Parktown, South Africa
- School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Clayton, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | - Andrea Whittaker
- School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Clayton, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Abstract
Does the transnational process of gamete selection challenge ways of mobilizing race and whiteness? Based on a mobile ethnography of the transnational fertility industry, I argue that fertility experts and intended parents (IP) co-produce the desirability of whiteness through "racial matching" for white, heterosexual IP, and "strategic hybridization", or strategic mixing of gametes, for some same-sex IP who do not identify as white. Although disruptive of notions of racial purity of whiteness and the heteronormative focus on resemblance match, the transnational legitimizing of such desires as intimate and innocuous choices depoliticizes conversations around race, racialization and whiteness as privilege.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Amrita Pande
- Department of Sociology, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa
| |
Collapse
|
6
|
Changing Fertility Landscapes: Exploring the Reproductive Routes and Choices of Fertility Patients from China for Assisted Reproduction in Russia. Asian Bioeth Rev 2021; 13:7-22. [PMID: 33456546 PMCID: PMC7797492 DOI: 10.1007/s41649-020-00156-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/17/2020] [Revised: 09/17/2020] [Accepted: 11/19/2020] [Indexed: 11/11/2022] Open
Abstract
Global reproductive landscapes and with them cross-border routes are rapidly changing. This paper examines the reproductive routes and choices of fertility travellers from China to Russia as reported by medical professionals and fertility service providers. Providing new empirical data, it raises new ethical questions on the facilitation of cross-border reproductive travel and the commercialisation of reproductive treatment. The relaxation of the one-child policy in 2014 in China, the increasing demand for ART exceeding the capacity of national fertility clinics and the difficulty of accessing treatment with donor eggs concomitant with a growing economic power of the upper–middle class are shaping the ART industry in Asia in new ways. A new development is Chinese citizens increasingly seeking ART treatment in Russia, which has a long-standing practice of ART governed by a liberal legislation. Furthermore, as China prohibits the export of gametes, Chinese fertility travellers rely on acquiring donor gametes once starting treatment abroad. Clinicians in Russia report three strategies amongst their Chinese patients: One group is using donor eggs of women of Asian appearance living in Russia or is hiring women of resembling appearance from third-party countries to donate their eggs in Russia to create resemblance in their offspring. Another group is buying white donor gametes to create Eurasian mixed children and thus ‘enhance’ their offspring. Providing novel empirical data, this article informs ethical deliberation and raises imminent questions for further research in this understudied geographic region and on cross-border reproductive treatment.
Collapse
|
7
|
Abstract
What shapes would-be parents' choices of gamete donors for third-party IVF? Following extensive ethnographic fieldwork in South African fertility clinics and egg donor agencies, I explore the work of donor matching, a process in which translational figures mediate patient desires, donor biography and corporeality, and racial imaginaries to assist would-be parents. In doing so, these figures, or "matchers," draw upon both historical schemas and novel articulations to enact race, and certain forms of whiteness. I describe this through the concept of "curature," a post-apartheid technology of racialization that reflects a neoliberal shift to privatized sites of power.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Tessa Moll
- Department of African and Gender Studies, Anthropology and Linguistics, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
| |
Collapse
|
8
|
Whittaker A, Inhorn MC, Shenfield F. Globalised quests for assisted conception: Reproductive travel for infertility and involuntary childlessness. Glob Public Health 2019; 14:1669-1688. [PMID: 31204900 DOI: 10.1080/17441692.2019.1627479] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
Abstract
The global movement of people across international borders to undergo assisted reproductive treatment is common, although there is little accurate data. In this article, we synthesise findings from our own empirical research on reproductive travel in addition to a review of clinical, ethical, legal, and regulatory complexities from studies on reproductive travel since 2010. Motivations for travel include legal and religious prohibitions; resource considerations; lack of access to gametes and reproductive assistors; quality and safety concerns; and personal preferences. Higher risks to mothers and children are associated with multiple embryo transfer and subsequent multiple and higher order pregnancies and the average older age of women undertaking reproductive travel. The potential exploitation of other women as providers of oocytes or surrogacy services, the lack of equity in access to assisted reproduction and the ambiguous legal status of children conceived from international reproductive travel are important ethical considerations. A range of significant legal issues remain given variable and limited international regulation. Scholarship on this trade necessarily engages with issues of power and gender, social inequities, global capitalism and the private decision-making of individuals seeking to form families. Research gaps remain given recent changes in the organisation, demands and destinations of the trade.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Andrea Whittaker
- School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Monash University , Melbourne , Australia
| | - Marcia C Inhorn
- Anthropology and International Affairs, Council on Middle East Studies, The MacMillan Center, Yale University , New Haven , CT , USA
| | | |
Collapse
|