Between Families and Frankenstein

Abstract

In this book, I undertake the first comprehensive theoretical and empirical analysis of the politics of the “wild west” of egg donation in the United States. If egg donation is so publicly recognizable and evokes such social interest, why does the U.S. system fail to regulate it? This book challenges conventional thinking around egg donation politics, exploring answers to how egg donation is defined, debated, and regulated in the United States, as well as exploring the logic of why the U.S. system of politics is organized the way it is around egg donation. Building upon theories of normative femininity in reproduction and scientific research, this book examines the relationships between subnational politics and policy in contemporary egg donation. I use three interdisciplinary areas of inquiry—policy framing, body politics and morality politics, and representation by gender and political party to answer long-standing questions about egg donation and politics in the fields of women’s and gender studies, political science and policy studies, and bioethics. Employing case studies, qualitative narrative analysis, and quantitative public-policy analyses of an original data set of over eight hundred state-level public policies around egg donation, this book clarifies the ways that gender, race, and class, as well as political institutions and actors, create systems of egg donation politics and regulation, particularly at the subnational level.

Alignment between expectations and experiences of egg donors: what does it mean to be informed?

“…With regard to oocyte provision in the USA, for example, there are no federal laws specifying what information oocyte donors must be given before undergoing the process ( Cahn and Collins, 2014 ), although several states (e.g. California, New York and Arizona) do have regulations specifying that information about the drugs used, the procedures and potential risks must be communicated ( Cahn and Collins, 2014 ; Heidt-Forsythe, 2018 ). However, even when guidelines or regulations exist, such as in Canada, not all clinic informed consent forms comply with what is required under the Canadian Assisted Human Reproduction Act ( Cattapan, 2016 ).…”