Making the Ethnic Embryo: Enacting Race in US Embryo Adoption

ABSTRACT

How are frozen embryos donated for procreation racialized as “ethnic” subjects and what are the political implications of these enactments? Based on ethnographic research within an embryo adoption program in the United States, I examine the practices through which staff and participants produce “ethnicity” in embryos and trace its multiple permutations. Strategies used to stabilize race in embryos also disturb, fracture, and confound the bases for designating race. Analyzing race-making practices in embryo adoption reveals the interplay between practical challenges in assisted family-making practices and their wider political implications for reproductive politics.

KEYWORDS:

• United States
• embryo adoption
• embryo donation
• enactment
• race
• reproductive politics

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to many for their contributions to this article. First and foremost, I want to thank the embryo donation program staff and participants who generously shared their time and insights with me. The article received invaluable feedback from opportunities to present earlier drafts at conferences, and I am appreciative of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics for providing me with conference travel support. I want to express particular appreciation to the Wenner-Gren Foundation workshop coordinators, Natali Valdez and Daisy Deomampo, and participants for their thoughtful engagement with my work. Finally, this article benefitted immensely from the constructive feedback of the anonymous reviewers.

Notes

1. Considerable efforts have been made to protect the confidentiality of individuals and organizations participating in this study. All names of research subjects and locations in this article are pseudonyms.

2. Accounting for the embryos never made captures a fuller picture of the distribution of IVF users in the United States. Unequal access to fertility treatment and disparate exposure to risk factors socially stratifies utilization of assisted reproductive technologies like IVF. IVF is used by a socially advantaged population, which has typically included white, heterosexual, cis-gender, non-disabled, and high socioeconomic status people. These groups are less frequently affected by infertility and are more socially capacitated to access services and insurance coverage, leading anthropologist Gay Becker to observe: “Who uses these (reproductive) technologies is not simply a function of who wants to use them but also of whom society permits to use them” (2000:20).

3. Because some embryo donations programs in the US and other countries allow for forms of contact between parties, the distinction made between embryo donation and “adoption” in the US is better understood as part of a broader “pro-life” Christian movement to assert the personhood of frozen embryos (Cromer 2019). The Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine – the nation’s largest professional association for fertility specialists – has rejected the descriptor “embryo adoption” because the committee believes it unethically affords embryos the status of persons (Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine 2016). Instead, it recommends treating embryo donation as a medical procedure. The US political context makes the practice of embryo donation unique when compared to other countries.

4. The legality of surrogacy contracts varies state-to-state. Surrogacy arrangements in embryo adoption are allowable when recipients reside in states where it is not illegal.

5. The vast majority of donors and recipients I interviewed identified as Protestant with some donors identifying as Catholic.

6. “Ethnic background” of recipients is one preference that donors rank along with religion, educational background, number of children, prior marriages, current marriage status or length, age, full or part-time employment status, financial position, and openness for contact.

7. Distributing percentages of ethnicity to distinct sets of embryos reproduces the myth of racial purity. Rephrasing historian Dorothy Roberts’ argument for the purposes of this argument, she might say that we can only imagine a 1/4 Caucasian embryo if we have a concept of another as 100 percent Caucasian (Roberts 2012:228).

Additional information

Funding

This work was generously supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research; the Woodrow Wilson Foundation’s Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship in Religion and Ethics; and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Notes on contributors

Risa Cromer

Risa Cromer is an assistant professor of Anthropology at Purdue University, with research interest in reproductive medicine, technologies, and politics.