Freezing time? The sociology of egg freezing
Kit C. Myers, Lauren Jade Martin
Abstract
Abstract 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.