Assisted reproduction in the Spanish Context: Egg donation as the engine of a heteronormative business model

Abstract

Assisted reproduction has transformed the way an increasing amount of people reproduce, along with social imaginaries around how reproduction takes place. It has also made possible to medicalize and commercialize reproduction in a completely new manner. Within Spain, the private sector is the leading one, even though there is extensive coverage in terms of techniques within the Public Sector (though long waiting lists, age and heteronormative access limitations do exist). This paper discusses the expansion of assisted reproduction in Spain unifying social and medical literature, reviewing data from the Spanish Fertility Society (SEF) and presenting some qualitative findings that examine the role of egg donation within clinics through interviewing professionals from them. Through analyzing this qualitative data, we show how these techniques are entangled in the reproduction of a heteronormative statu quo involved in naturalizing and normalizing intra family gender roles both at the personal and cell levels.