Frozen eggs, Frozen dreams: How oocyte cryopreservation in urban India alter women’s approach to family formation

• In Event: Transgressive Markets in Assisted Reproduction: Queering family construction in the 21st century

Abstract

Oocyte cryopreservation for self-usage, commonly known as ‘social egg freezing’ is slowly taking root in urban India. Though currently accessible and affordable primarily only to financially well-off women, Indian health care professionals are advocating for the ‘timely’ use of this technology and now actively encouraging young, urban women to cryopreserve their eggs as a guarantee or safe deposit for biologically linked children at an appropriate moment in the future. This emerging technological tool can significantly influence not only women’s choices, aspirations and preferences towards family formation but can also alter the traditional expectations around marriage and understandings of family. The ethical debate on social egg freezing has to date mainly focused on the question of whether it empowers women to take control of their bodies and fertility or rather disempowers them by reiterating the importance of producing biologically linked offspring. The goal of this paper is to analyse the impact of oocyte cryopreservation in a more culturally specific context: to explore its impact on the concept and practice of family life in urban India. Using interdisciplinary approaches I tease out the social-cultural and ethical implications of encouraging a large majority of Indian women to adopt the technology and investigate role that key social actors (spouses, in-laws, employers, extended family) are playing in facilitating or prohibiting use of this emergent technology.

Author

• Priya Satalkar, Institute for Biomedical Ethics, University of Basel, Switzerland