One woman helping another: Egg donation as a case of relational work

Politics and Society

Volumn 40, Issue 2, 2012, Pages 223-247

  Haylett, Jennifer ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

Egg donation; Family; Motherhood; Relational work; Reproductive technology

Indexed keywords

EID: 84860725177     PISSN: 00323292     EISSN: 15527514     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0032329212441599     Document Type: Article

References (73)

1. Gemma Orobitg and Carles Salazar, "The Gift of Motherhood: Egg Donation in a Barcelona Infertility Clinic," Ethnos 70, no.1 (2005): 31-52.
2. Sharon Hays, The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996).
3. Nancy F. Cott, "Domesticity," in B. J. Fox, ed., Family Patterns, Gender Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 114;
4. Hays, The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood; Arlie Hochschild, The Second Shift (New York, NY: Viking, 1989);
5. Barrie Thorne, "Feminism and the Family: Two Decades of Thought" in B. Thorne and M. Yalom, eds., Rethinking the Family: Some Feminist Questions (Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, 1992), 3.
6. Kieran Healy, Last Best Gifts: Altruism and the Market for Human Blood and Organs (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006);
7. Richard Titmuss, The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy (New York: Vintage, 1971);
8. Michele B. Goodwin, "Baby Markets," in M. B. Goodwin, ed., Baby Markets: Money and the New Politics of Creating Families (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 2.
9. Naomi R. Cahn, Test Tube Families: Why the Fertility Market Needs Legal Regulation (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2009).
10. Vivana Zelizer, The Purchase of Intimacy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005).
11. Viviana Zelizer, "How I Became A Relational Economic Sociologist And What Does That Mean?" Politics & Society 40, no. 2 (2012), 145-74.
12. Nina Bandelj, "Relational Work and Economic Sociology," Politics & Society 40, no. 2 (2012), 175-201.
13. Frederick F. Wherry, "Performance Circuits in the Marketplace," Politics & Society 40, no. 2 (2012), 203-221.
14. Zelizer, The Purchase of Intimacy.
15. Ibid. 46
16. Thorne, "Feminism and the Family" 5.
17. Zelizer, The Purchase of Intimacy, 41.
18. Ibid. 49
19. Ibid,12.
20. Viviana Zelizer, "How I Became A Relational Economic Sociologist and What Does That Mean?"
21. Ibid. 33
22. Erica Haimes, "Issues of Gender in Gamete Donation," Social Science & Medicine 36, no. 1 (1993): 85-93;
23. Roberta Lessor, "All in the Family: Social Process in Ovarian Egg Donation Between Sisters," Sociology of Health and Illness 15, no. 3 (1993): 393-13.
24. Charis Thompson, Making Parents: The Ontological Choreography of Reproductive Technologies (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005).
25. Rene Almeling, "'Why Do You Want to Be a Donor?': Gender and the Production of Altruism in Egg and Sperm Donation," New Genetics and Society 25 (2006): 143-57.
26. Barbara Katz-Rothman, "Reproductive Technologies and Surrogacy: A Feminist Perspective," Creighton Law Review 25 (1992): 1599-615.
27. Rene Almeling, Sex Cells: The Medical Market for Eggs and Sperm (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011);
28. Elly Teman, Birthing a Mother: The Surrogate Body and the Pregnant Self (Berkeley: UC Press, 2010).
29. Katz-Rothman, "Reproductive Technologies and Surrogacy," 1607.
30. Gay Becker, The Elusive Embryo: How Women and Men Approach New Reproductive Technologies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 133.
31. Ibid. 41
32. Almeling, "'Why Do You Want to Be a Donor?"
33. Haimes, "Issues of Gender in Gamete Donation."
34. Debra Satz, Why Some Things Should Not Be For Sale: The Moral Limits of Markets (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
35. Teman, Birthing a Mother.
36. A key characteristic of egg donation is the intimate fact that it is a very intrusive process that is specifically centered on women's bodies, a sex-specific aspect that I believe makes it different from other forms of bodily donation, such as blood or organ.
37. Orobitg and Salazar, "The Gift of Motherhood."
38. Becker, The Elusive Embryo.
39. Almeling, "'Why Do You Want to Be a Donor?";
40. Barbara Katz Rothman, Recreating Motherhood (New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 1989; reprint, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000);
41. Lessor, "All in the Family"; and Orobitg and Salazar, The Gift of Motherhood."
42. All interviews were in-depth and open-ended, lasting approximately one hour and were centered around topical areas rather than a linear question format. I interviewed respondents in a variety of settings, based on their preferences, ranging from coffee houses to respondents' homes, or at the fertility clinics. In one case, I interviewed a donor over the phone. During the course of the interview, I attempted to have the woman walk me through her recollection of the decision to donate, the process of applying, interactions with the staff, the creation of a donor profile, the moment when she found out she was chosen to be a donor, the process of medication and retrieval, and post-donation reflections.
43. Of these two, one went through the application, screening, and matching process but was then rejected due to medical tests that revealed she carried a genetic disorder. The other went through the entire process up to the egg retrieval day when it was discovered that she had not produced a substantial amount of eggs; therefore, the procedure was canceled. Since my questions do not rely on whether or not women finished the entire egg donation process, I was open to interviewing women as long as they had been selected by a recipient for donation.
44. Over the course of nine months, I spent one to two days a week shadowing fertility center staff who recruit donors, match them with recipients, and facilitate their experience through the entire egg donation process. Through my participant observation I gained in-depth understanding of the process of egg donation from within the institutional setting of the fertility center. I was able to watch how egg donors are chosen and how the fertility center staff organize and facilitate the egg donation process.
45. Almeling, Sex Cells.
46. Ibid. 22
47. For confidentiality purposes, pseudonyms are used throughout this paper for all fertility institutions.
48. Wherry, "Performance Circuits in the Marketplace".
49. Zelizer, "How I Became A Relational Economic Sociologist And What Does That Mean?"
50. Almeling, Sex Cells.
51. Rene Almeling, "Selling Genes, Selling Gender: Egg Agencies, Sperm Banks, and the Medical Market in Genetic Material," American Sociological Review 72 (2007): 319-40.
52. Almeling, Sex Cells.
53. Orobitg and Salazar, "The Gift of Motherhood."
54. Almeling, Sex Cells.
55. Although none of the women I spoke with donated to a gay male couple, at Western Fertility, Inc., egg donation for a gay male couple with a surrogate is a possibility.
56. Lessor, "All in the Family."
57. For confidentiality purposes, all names throughout the paper are pseudonyms.
58. Almeling, Sex Cells.
59. Zelizer, How I Became A Relational Economic Sociologist And What Does That Mean?"
60. Ibid. 21
61. Almeling, Sex Cells.
62. Zelizer, The Purchase of Intimacy.
63. Ibid. 63
64. Karen A. Cerulo, "Reframing Sociological Concepts for a Brave New (Virtual?) World," Sociological Inquiry 67, no.1 (1997): 50.
65. Almeling, "Selling Genes, Selling Gender," 336.
66. Ibid., 336.
67. Helena Ragone, Surrogate Motherhood: Conception in the Heart (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994);
68. Teman, Birthing a Mother.
69. Ragone, Surrogate Motherhood.
70. Zelizer, The Purchase of Intimacy, 34.
71. Ibid., 3.
72. Zelizer, "How I Became A Relational Economic Sociologist And What Does That Mean?"
73. Clare L. Stacey, "Finding Dignity in Dirty Work: the Constraints and Rewards of Low-Wage Home Care Labour," Sociology of Health & Illness 27, no. 6 (2005): 851-52.