| Description |
This dissertation studies France's complex social, medical, legal, bodily, technical, and kinship relations that shape egg freezing (oocyte vitrification for autologous purposes). The study focuses both on the normative dimension that structures access to this biomedical technology and on the practices and experiences of those directly involved (the women having theirs eggs frozen, as well as the practitioners and laboratory technicians who make it medically and technically possible), and on the technical dimension of oocyte freezing. Drawing on 20-month fieldwork (2018 - 2019), this research presents an Ethno-sociological study combining semi-structured interviews and ethnographic research. Direct observation took place in three French centers for assisted reproductive techniques (centres d’assistance médicale à la procréation-Centre d’Étude et de Conservation des Œufs et du sperme, AMP-CECOS) and, in particular, in their in vitro fertilization (IVF) laboratories. On the one hand, this work proposes deconstructing the three legal-medico categories of access to oocyte freezing in France: medical egg freezing or “fertility preservation,” egg-sharing (ESH), and so-called social egg freezing (SEF). On the other hand, it questions the link between oocyte vitrification, procreation, and motherhood. Contrary to what one might think, my study suggests that egg freezing is not necessarily a biotechnology for procreation. My analysis allows me to argue that egg freezing is a kind of medicalization of uncertainty from an institutional, subjective, and technical point of view.
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