title: Abandonment and accumulation: embryonic futures in the United States and Ecuador.
abstract: When frozen embryos are publically debated in the United States, they are most often positioned as having two possible future trajectories: (1) as individual humans and (2) as contributors to stem cell research. Long-term embryo accumulation threatens both of these futures. An accumulated embryo is stuck in a clinic, held back from having an individual future or from contributing to science. There are other kinds of futures, though. For some patients in the United States and Ecuador, where I conducted ethnographic research, future reckoning involves a vision of responsibility toward embryos embedded within a specific family. For these patients, frozen embryo donation to another family or to science constitutes abandonment. The future at stake is not that of an individual embryo's life, but a group's future who would abandon one of its own. These patients would rather destroy embryos than freeze them for a future away from their relations. [Ecuador, United States, in
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, USA.
authors.forename: Elizabeth F S
authors.initials: EF
authors.lastname: Roberts
mesh_terms: D000884:Anthropology, Cultural; D004484:Ecuador; D033041:Embryo Research / Q000941:ethics*; D005307:Fertilization in Vitro / Q000941:ethics*; D006801:Humans; D014481:United States