Freezing time? The sociology of egg freezing

Bibliographic Data

ID12912980
AuthorsKit C Myers (Roanoke College), Lauren Jade Martins (0000-0003-2324-174X, Pennsylvania State University, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume15
Issue4
Publication date2021-03-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociology Compass (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1751-9020 • E-ISSN: 1751-9020
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/soc4.12850
OpenAlexW3134096881
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited112

In the past decade, social scientists and bioethicists have produced a significant body of work tracking the technical, legal, ethical, and sociocultural development and implications of human egg freezing. What began as a treatment to “preserve” the fertility of cancer patients has transformed into a technology enabling delayed childbearing. We provide an overview of four research areas that have received the most attention in the sociological and anthropological literature of egg freezing: medicalization, gender, temporality and risk, and markets. What emerges from much of the research is the sense that egg freezing has become entangled with cultural imperatives to take future‐oriented responsibility for one's own health, financial, social, and reproductive needs through self‐management, risk reduction, calculation, and optimization. Throughout, we consider the implications of this novel reproductive technology within national and transnational “reproflows” that stratify reproduction along raced and classed lines

Biology · Egg donation · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Medicalization · Reproduction · Social science · Sociocultural evolution · Sociology · Temporality · Anthropology · Assisted Reproductive Technology and Twin Pregnancy · Gender Studies · Psychology · Reproductive Biology and Fertility · Reproductive Health and Technologies · Ecology

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