ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on one issue, that of the practice of so-called egg donation in the context of transnational transactions and a rising, private fertility industry. Sigrid Graumann and Ingrid Schneider suggest distinguishing between two waves of feminist reprogenetics critique in Germany. Technologies, feminists argued, do not per se increase women’s self-determination, whether reproductive technologies or technologies of contraception, abortion, or sterilization. Feminists rejected an individualist conception of reproductive self-determination that would reduce self-determination to freedom of choice without taking into account the social pressures and the norms and standards of motherhood, femininity, fitness, productivity, and performance according to which women had to make their decisions. Web advertisements suggest additional reasons for which people might seek cross-border reproductive services, including confidentiality, donor anonymity, and extensive supplies of third-party gametes. Media stories draw public attention to a number of serious issues in reproductive cross-border transactions, such as health risks for egg providers.
