TY - ABST

T1 - Free(ze) yourself! Legal and commercial imaginaries on egg freezing

AU - Kroløkke, Charlotte

AU - Herrmann, Janne Rothmar

PY - 2018

Y1 - 2018

N2 - Denmark is known as home to the world’s largest sperm bank. But whereas the legal framework accommodates the sale and storage of sperm, women’s eggs are subject to fundamentally different regulation. Consequently, as Swedish fertility travelers come to Denmark to buy anonymous donor sperm, Swedish clinics target Danish women in adverts encouraging them to travel to Sweden in order to freeze their eggs. In 2012 The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) declared that egg freezing was no longer experimental, initiating a global commercialization and investment in the freezing of women’s own eggs while the eggs are ‘young’ and ‘fresh’. Today, it is possible to freeze (and thaw) eggs as well as embryos – probably indefinitely. But which values, interests and imaginaries are behind the Danish and Swedish regulation? Which perceptions or imaginations are behind the increased commercialization in Sweden, where egg freezing is increasingly seen as an employment perk. In this paper we make a cross-disciplinary analysis of Danish and Swedish regulation and two different market perceptions; while Danish law limits cryopreservation to 5 years and cuts off women above the age of 46 to use them in treatment, frozen eggs in Sweden are increasingly staged as part of a woman’s autonomy.

AB - Denmark is known as home to the world’s largest sperm bank. But whereas the legal framework accommodates the sale and storage of sperm, women’s eggs are subject to fundamentally different regulation. Consequently, as Swedish fertility travelers come to Denmark to buy anonymous donor sperm, Swedish clinics target Danish women in adverts encouraging them to travel to Sweden in order to freeze their eggs. In 2012 The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) declared that egg freezing was no longer experimental, initiating a global commercialization and investment in the freezing of women’s own eggs while the eggs are ‘young’ and ‘fresh’. Today, it is possible to freeze (and thaw) eggs as well as embryos – probably indefinitely. But which values, interests and imaginaries are behind the Danish and Swedish regulation? Which perceptions or imaginations are behind the increased commercialization in Sweden, where egg freezing is increasingly seen as an employment perk. In this paper we make a cross-disciplinary analysis of Danish and Swedish regulation and two different market perceptions; while Danish law limits cryopreservation to 5 years and cuts off women above the age of 46 to use them in treatment, frozen eggs in Sweden are increasingly staged as part of a woman’s autonomy.

UR - http://koensforskning.dk/freeze-yourself-legal-and-commercial-imaginaries-on-egg-freezing-v-charlotte-krolokke-professor-mso-institut-for-kulturvidenskaber-syddansk-universitet-charlottekrosdu-dk-og-janne-rothmar-he/

M3 - Konferenceabstrakt til konference

T2 - Årskonferencen for Kønsforskning 2018

Y2 - 30 August 2018 through 30 August 2018

ER -