Routledge releases medical anthropologist Diane Tober’s groundbreaking study of human egg donors this week, cracking open the conversations about IVF, women’s reproductive health, rights to bodily autonomy, and parenting before an important presidential election. Eggonomics: The Global Market in Human Eggs and the Donors Who Supply Them is both timely and jaw-dropping in its findings and implications. In February 2024, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) where Diane Tober is a tenured professor, paused in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments after an Alabama Supreme Court ruling which was later overturned. This is the first study to examine the experiences of egg donors. What happens when people are reduced to products? By pulling back the clinical curtain on the multi-billion-dollar per year global egg industry, that is the central question which Eggonomics seeks to address. Tracing the emotional and physical journeys egg donors embark upon as suppliers of valuable commodities, this book reveals uncomfortable realities at the heart of the industry. Donors ― and the eggs they provide ― are absolutely essential to helping others create the families of their dreams. But not all clinics treat their donors as well as their paying patients, and many donors suffer as a result. Technological innovations allow the egg donation industry to expand, fueling the private equity incursion into fertility medicine, turning once-private clinics into highly profitable, multinational conglomerates. Drawing upon international anthropological fieldwork, Eggonomics reveals the clinical spaces where egg donor’s bodies are tested, prodded, and poked for ever-increasing sums of profit, eugenic forces drive donor…

Diane Tober pulls back the clinical curtain on the multibillion-dollar global egg industry in her new book coming out in October. A medical anthropologist recently tenured at the University of Alabama, Tober has conducted the first study of egg donors and reveals the introduction of private equity into fertility medicine. The recent Alabama Supreme Court decision, which upended IVF procedures at the teaching hospital in Birmingham where Diane teaches, punted fertility medicine like a political football. And the rights of women who can afford the out-of-pocket medical expenses starting at $40K to harvest their own eggs and insert fertilized eggs into her own uterus, found quick defense in popular opinion. But what of egg donors who undergo the same medical procedure of hormonal stimulation and egg retrieval for intended parents whose fertility issues prevent them from conceiving a child without medical intervention? They too might get a pass from the public. But what of the women who sell their eggs? They might be called donors, but they receive financial compensation. What happens when women are reduced to the value of biomedical products? Tracing the journey of egg donors from recruitment, screening, medical procedures, and post-operative care, Tober lets these women speak about their role in supplying valuable commodities. Her fieldwork in the US and Spain explores the clinical spaces where egg donors’ bodies are tested, prodded, and poked for ever-increasing sums of profit. Technological innovations allowed the egg donation industry to grow with exponential profits attracting private equity investments in…

As the year begins to come to a close, the Thanksgiving holiday reminds me of how much light there is in my life. I live in a community that reads, celebrates books, and supports literary artists and libraries. Books are something I feel passionately about and I’m grateful to have made them my calling, my livelihood, in this chapter of my life. For her skills and talents as an editor, Jenna Goodman appears top of my gratitude list. The professionalism, support and enthusiasm Sharon Yntema, bookkeeper and blogger, brings to Swenson Book Development LLC is appreciated. I am tremendously grateful to Susan Tripp for the administrative and project support she gives to our clients and contacts. For two interns this year, Alanna Rieser and Samantha Kolb, I am fortunate. Chad Lieberman continues to provide excellent service in webhosting and website design/development for Swenson Book Development LLC and our clients. Bringing books into the world is tremendously satisfying and I owe everything to my extraordinary clients. Four new book releases this fall and three publishing contracts for clients in 2017. Several clients with tremendously promising projects to pitch this coming spring. And for all of you who have shared your writing and stories with me as work-in-progress, I am humbled by my luck in finding fascinating people doing honorable work with words. I am grateful to Linda J. Spielman, whose devotion to wildlife in upstate to New York I share. When she contacted me with an idea for a book—a book…