Conquering the Biological Clock: Representations of Social Egg Freezing and Meanings of Oocytes in the Assisted Reproduction Industry

Abstract

“Social egg freezing” (SEF) describes the preventative use of oocyte cryopreservation by healthy women to bank their gametes until they are ready to have children. Existing research has tended to focus on the individual experiences of women who freeze their eggs, masking the assisted reproduction industry’s influence on the demand for SEF. Through a qualitative content analysis of the websites of Canadian fertility clinic and North American fertility start-up websites offering SEF, this study examines the key ways in which the industry markets SEF through specific narratives and terminology. First, websites reframed SEF as a treatment for age-related fertility decline, blurring boundaries between “medical” and “social” oocyte cryopreservation. Second, they emphasized buying time faced with a risky future, empowerment through autonomy, and the patient as consumer. Last, websites reflected an intensified technological scrutiny of (in)fertility, in which faith in technological progress, oocytes as protagonists, and fertility optimization featured centrally.