Speculative Egg Freezing and Oocyte Markets: Translating Metaphors of Body and Bank

Abstract

This paper will take up the conceptual category of the American oocyte bank to think more closely about how metaphors of financialisation and efficiency translate within the context of human fertility and reproduction. It will analyse the biomaterial archive of human gamete banks and trace the ways in which the metaphor of the ‘bank’ moves across human reproduction and the production of value. By taking up these questions in relation to human biomaterials, this paper aims to better understand recent shifts toward speculative value, such as predictive egg freezing, as well as the transformation of contemporary oocyte economies. It argues that the privatised and racialised character of the modern reproductive marketplace is enabled by the translation work performed by financialised metaphors of the bank, and suggests that frameworks drawn from more collectivist metaphors may allow for different legal and social materialities to emerge.