TY - JOUR
T1 - Prenatal Imaging
T2 - Egg Freezing, Embryo Selection and the Visual Politics of Reproductive Time
AU - van de Wiel, Lucy
PY - 2018/9/22
Y1 - 2018/9/22
N2 - In 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.
AB - In 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.
UR - https://catalystjournal.org/index.php/catalyst/article/view/29908
U2 - 10.28968/cftt.v4i2.29908
DO - 10.28968/cftt.v4i2.29908
M3 - Article
SN - 2380-3312
VL - 4
SP - 1
JO - Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience
JF - Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience
IS - 2
ER -