The emergence of egg intermediaries in the European fertility landscape: the creation of value in reproductive bioeconomies

Nicky Hudson, Christina Weis, Vincenzo Pavone, Cathy Herbrand and Veerle Provoost

Social Science & Medicine, 2025, vol. 383, issue C

Abstract: With recent growth in both domestic and global private health care markets and increased medical travel by patients, there has been an increase in the existence of medical mediation services. Whilst there is a developing scholarship that considers the brokerage of this travel, less attention has been paid to other forms of medical facilitation. Taking the example of fertility treatment - specifically egg donation - this paper examines how intermediaries develop, how they operate and specifically how they create multiple forms of value within systems of healthcare traditionally based around non-commercial logics. The data come from a large-scale comparative study of egg donation in Europe, designed to explore the new landscape and economy of human eggs in fertility treatment. Data collection included: interviews with key actors in the field (donors, clinic staff, intermediary representatives and other stakeholders, n = 132); analysis of marketing material from clinic and intermediary websites; and discussions at deliberative policy workshops with the project team and stakeholders. We identified three types of intermediaries: egg agencies, egg banks, and online matching platforms; actors that are engaged in a multiplicity of valuation practices which give rise to novel forms of logistical, affective, commercial and circumventional value. We suggest that via these practices egg intermediaries are reconfiguring the relationship between donors, fertility patients and the traditional notion of the fertility clinic, and reshaping normative understandings around reproductive labour, kinship, and biomedicine in the wider fertility landscape.

Keywords: Medical travel; Brokers; Egg donation; IVF; Fertility treatment; Valuation practices; Biovalue (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118448

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