Ovarian tissue cryopreservation and bioethical discourse.

As the chapters in this volume demonstrate, like other nascent medical technologies ovarian tissue cryopreservation (OTC) raises no earth-shatteringly new moral questions. Rather, it poses old moral questions in new ways, thus shedding light not only on our old answers but also on our old methods of reaching them. My task here is to point out the ways in which OTC forces us to embrace important changes of emphasis in bioethics discourse around reproduction, changes that were already burgeoning and are now being reinforced by the unequivocal demands of this particular technology. All but the last of these is specifically tied to discussions that have preoccupied philosophical and religious feminism; the last, as a logical consequence of the first four, connects indirectly. Jacci Stoyle’s incisive critique of Christian moral reflection on in vitro fertilization (IVF) provides a helpful foil [1]. Why, she asks, despite the extraordinary risk and discomfort that women must undergo in order to receive IVF, does the literature so thoroughly elide women (except as containers), focus so heavily on the moral status of the embryo, and emphasize men’s anxiety over infertility and embarrassment with treatment procedures? Given that the whole purpose of IVF is to create an expanded web of familial relationships, why does the literature focus on conflicts of individual rights? I argue that the ethics of OTC helpfully reframe the reproductive technologies debate, moving us out of the logical ruts in which the ethics of reproductive technology often seems to be mired, despite the presence of alternative models.