As soon as in vitro fertilization (IVF) was established in 1970, the practical legal and ethical question of embryos cryopreservation emerged. A single IVF cycle creates numerous embryos and, generally, a greater number of those that will be used for conception. Across the world, stored embryos are described as problematic, because a significant proportion of these are labelled as “surplus” for reproductive needs and remain cryopreserved indefinitely. These “extra embryos”, as biovalues, may be transferred immediately to other patients’ wombs, disposed of, or cryopreserved for embryo donation (ED).
InVitroFutures is built around 3 Research Objects.
RO1. Biomedical Issues, Moral Discourses, Salvific Logics. In the current framework of ED management, the line between the logics of gift-commodity, labour-donation, waste-value, property-entitlement in the reproductive bio-economy are increasingly blurred: in line with RO1, the research will explore and study how medical actions contribute to such blurring.
RO2. Regulations, Practices, Political Effects. To identify how these meanings and practices are influenced or promoted by social determinants such as nationality/country, bio-political institutions, gender-sexuality, class, race, in the presence or absence of a regulatory framework, this research requires the comparison between the two cases: ED in Spain and in Canada.
RO3. Relatedness in Embryo Donation. Inspired by the theoretical framework of kinning and de-kinning, this research will pursue RO3 by examining empirically the meanings and practices of family relatedness in the transition to parenthood of families created through ED, and the representations of embryo donors and receivers.
