Emancipation on thin ice

Abstract

Abstract A growing number of women in different countries are freezing their eggs as a way to preserve fertility not just for medical reasons, but for what have been referred to as ‘lifestyle’ or ‘social’ reasons. Ethical debates so far have often focused on reproductive autonomy and gender inequalities in society. Based on a critical analysis of the available studies that explore women’s experiences, we conclude that women’s choice to freeze their eggs is much more ambiguous than mainstream approaches to bioethics usually suggest. Furthermore, we point to a gap in the literature of social egg freezing regarding issues of reproductive justice, including the multiple and intersecting structural conditions that govern who has access to this technology, and tease out some issues that still need to be further explored, such as the outcomes and quality of treatment for non-normative users. Expanding the debate with an intersectional analysis makes visible, as we demonstrate, how techniques such as social egg freezing fit into, and contribute to the propagation of, neoliberal gendered, heteronormative, and racialised societies.