Assisted reproduction and Middle East kinship:a regional and religious comparison

Assisted reproduction and Middle East kinship:a regional and religious comparison

Inhorn, Marcia C.
Birenbaum-Carmeli, Daphna
Tremayne, Soraya
Gürtin, Zeynep

English

20170708

This article compares the use of assisted reproductive technology (ART) and resultant kinship formations in four Middle Eastern settings: the Sunni Muslim Arab world, the Sunni Muslim but officially 'secular' country of Turkey, Shia Muslim Iran and Jewish Israel. This four-way comparison reveals considerable similarities, as well as stark differences, in matters of Middle Eastern kinship and assisted reproduction. The permissions and restrictions on ART, often determined by religious decrees, may lead to counter-intuitive outcomes, many of which defy prevailing stereotypes about which parts of the Middle East are more 'progressive' or 'conservative'. Local considerations – be they social, cultural, economic, religious or political – have shaped the ways in which ART treatments are offered to, and received by, infertile couples in different parts of the Middle East. Yet, across the region, clerics, in dialogue with clinicians and patients, have paved the way for ART practices that have had significant implications for Middle Eastern kinship and family life.

14.1

14.1; 1.2

religious ethics [pri]; reproductive technologies [pri]

comparative studies; consanguinity; family relationship; infertility; in vitro fertilization; Islamic ethics; Jewish ethics; ovum donation

Middle East [pri]

Iran; Israel; Turkey

third-party reproduction

nasab; Shi'a; Sunni

Reproductive Biomedicine and Society Online. 2017 July; 8: 40 p.

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.

73 refs

24056618 (online)