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Prenatal Imaging: Egg Freezing, Embryo Selection and the Visual Politics of Reproductive Time

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Van de Wiel, Lucy 

Abstract

jats:pIn the last decade, two influential new reproductive technologies have been introduced that are changing the face of in vitro fertilization (IVF): egg freezing for “fertility preservation” and time-lapse embryo imaging for embryo selection. With these technologies emerge alternative visual representations of the assisted reproductive process and its relation to time. First, frozen egg photographs provide a lens onto contemporary reconfigurations of reproductive aging and stage a life-death dyad between the frozen cell and the embodied self, which drives treatment rationales for egg freezing. Second, time-lapse embryo imaging creates visual recordings of developing embryos in the incubator; the resultant quantified visual information can then be repurposed as a tool for predicting embryo viability. As these two sets of prenatal images reference dying eggs and non-viable embryos, they demonstrate a necropolitics of reproductive time, in which not only the generativity of new life but also the encounter with the death, finitude and fallibility of reproductive substances drives a widespread and intensified engagement with reproductive technologies.</jats:p>

Description

Keywords

Reproductive technologies, IVF, Time-lapse embryo imaging, Prenatal imaging, Feminism, Visual culture

Journal Title

Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2380-3312
2380-3312

Volume Title

4

Publisher

University of Toronto Libraries - UOTL
Sponsorship
Wellcome Trust (100606/Z/12/Z)
Wellcome Trust (100606/Z/12/A)
Alan Turing Institute (Unknown)
Alan Turing Institute