Institutional Categories on Autologous Oocyte Vitrification in France through Women’s Experiences

• In Event: The New Bioeconomy in Eggs: Innovations, Interruptions and Regenerations in the Management of Human Oocytes

Abstract

Autologous oocyte vitrification is a new biomedical practice that allows women to have their eggs frozen and stored for future use. In France, ‘egg-freezing’ is a highly controlled process, managed by public institutions, such as the Bioethical Agency and the CECOS (Public Centers for eggs and sperm storing). Legal, bioethical, medical and administrative French institutions recognize three categories for accessing this technology: medical reasons, social reasons and “shared donation”. Women with a disease are allowed to freeze their eggs in France and treatment is covered by the social insurance system. Conversely, women seeking to preserve their fertility for non-medical reasons are only allowed to use this technology in specific circumstances: if they are under 37 years old, have no children and are willing to donate half of the eggs from a cycle of hormonal stimulation. In this case, the public health system also pays for the treatment. These institutionally defined categories, however, do not always match with women’s experiences. What does it mean for women to have “medical reasons” or “social reasons”? How do they experience shared donation? How do they perceive their frozen eggs? Do their stories, experiences, expectations, and imaginaries about their frozen eggs change in accordance with the “reason” for egg-freezing? This paper aims to answer these questions using 16 in-depth face-to-face interviews conducted between March and December 2018 among French women who have had frozen or who are going to freeze their eggs. Ethnographic data are part of my ongoing qualitative Ph.D. research in Social Anthropology.

Author

• Yolinliztli Pérez Hernández, EHESS/Ined