"I would want to pay her": Challenging altruistic egg exchanges in Canada through moral patchworks.

Abstract

Studies surrounding egg donation often occur within existing legal marketplaces showing how language of altruism and gift is employed to uphold gendered standards of femininity and morality. This article examines how women negotiate those gendered and moral standards under the Canadian Assisted Human Reproduction Act (AHRA), which prohibited the market exchange of eggs through the criminalization of paid egg donation. Through 71 in-depth semi-structured interviews with health care professionals (n=51) and egg donation recipients (n=20), I argue that participants in these exchanges use a patchwork of moral framings to question the ethicality of the act and the gendered links between altruism, morality and femininity. These market participants employ moral patchworks consisting of subverting, circumventing and rejecting the legally defined ethical practice of donation. By explicitly discussing payment and gifts as moral egg donation exchanges, recipients and fertility professionals suggest that egg donors' reproductive labor should be monetarily recognized. This article considers the ethical implications of these moral patchworks for understanding how gender is reproduced and undone in market exchanges.