Abstract
Egg donation in Russia is a rather novel method for infertile patients offered by an emergent biomedical field of reproductive medicine. While some scholars conceptualise egg donation as a ‘gift’, a ‘donation’ made out of altruistic motives, others consider it an economic activity, as a type of ‘reproductive labour’. To understand egg donation in Russia, this chapter analyses everyday practices of donation in a Moscow infertility clinic. It discusses how arrival of markets to post-Soviet settings enabled an emergence of trade-like practises with ova in the domain of infertility treatment. The chapter investigates shaping of this new domain in Russia and how private actors managed to develop and structure the practises of ova exchange to their advantage. It highlights how given the lack of state regulation of ova exchange, individuals operating private infertility clinics take the primary role in shaping the field of reproductive medicine and establishing the notion of ova as a commodity.
I gladly express my gratitude to the Russian Humanitarian Scientific Foundation (Grant No. 16-01-00136) and the head of the project, Natalya Pushkareva, for supporting my communication with Russian, European, and American scholars at scientific conferences, giving me a chance to exchange ideas and get inspiration.
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Notes
- 1.
Hereafter I use the words eggs, oocytes, ova, female reproductive cells, and gametes interchangeably.
- 2.
Consider, for example, Directive 2004/23/EC of the European Union and of the Council of 31 March 2004 on setting standards of quality and safety for the donation, procurement, testing, processing, preservation, storage, and distribution of human tissues and cells.
(18) As a matter of principle, tissue and cell application programmes should be founded on the philosophy of voluntary and unpaid donation, anonymity of both donor and recipient, altruism of the donor and solidarity between donor and recipient. [italics added]
- 3.
Consider the recommendations of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (2002):
III. Gamete and embryo donation
In principle there should be no payment for the donation of biological material. The intrinsic value of a gift , a way of showing solidarity is higher than the positive utilitarian consequences of paying and obtaining more material. This does not exclude reasonable compensation for the effort of the donor. (ESHRE 2002: 1408) [italics added]
- 4.
See Kurlenkova (2014).
- 5.
Article 55, Federal Law of the Russian Federation No. 323-FZ of 21.11.2011 “On the fundamentals of health protection of citizens in the Russian Federation” (edition as of 26 April 2016).
- 6.
PGD is aimed at revealing genetic mutations in the embryo stage, while amniocentesis reveals them in an already-developing fetus.
- 7.
Today RUnet is full of commercials asking for young, healthy, often ‘Slavic-looking’ egg donors placed by clinics and donor agencies. Some of them are written on public forums and social media directly by donors and patients who want to find each other by bypassing institutions. Russian social networks, such as vkontakte.com, has special interest groups (such as https://vk.com/donori_oocitov and https://vk.com/ekoplod, which has 4–8000 subscribers), where any registered user can suggest herself as an egg donor or, in case of agencies and private patients, list their requirements for potential donors. Some donor profiles have real photos and names, others use nicknames and fake pictures.
- 8.
Date of access: 6.06.2014.
- 9.
These may be women with blocked fallopian tubes or polycystic ovaries; lesbians and single women; and women having infertile partners (URL: http://www.eggsharing.com/eggsharer_elibility.html).
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Kurlenkova, A. (2018). Ova Exchange Practises at a Moscow Fertility Clinic: Gift or Commodity?. In: Zvonareva, O., Popova, E., Horstman, K. (eds) Health, Technologies, and Politics in Post-Soviet Settings. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64149-2_7
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