The first reading "Selective Reproductive Technologies" by Tine M. Gammeltoft and Ayo Wahlberg argue that new technologies are used not only to prevent certain types of birth, but also to ensure a particular type of birth through selection of gametes. Agency is given to individuals, patients who seek out these therapies, propagating a narrative of self-determination rather than state-urged eugenic practices. While supposedly neutral in this regard, the authors argue that there is social pressure, including a sense of collective obligation to the state, that guides these decisions. Decisions can also be made pragmatically, based on whether or not the mother or parents will be able to support a child with special needs. With these technologies, however, there is increased responsibility put on the mother for producing a healthy child and she is blamed for any abnormalities. New technologies, and their commodification, that allow for 'selection' and constant monitoring produces new anxieties and different kinds of risks.
"Eggs and Wombs: The Origins of Jewishness" by Susan Kahn and "Making Muslim Babies" by Marcia C. Inhorn are written in the same vein. They take a closer look at the role of reproductive technologies in the lives of Jewish and Muslim - both Sunni and Shi'a - parents. The process of IVF confounds understandings of kinships and comes into conflict with religious sins and taboos such as adultery and incest. For the Jewish mothers, whose Jewish identity and therefore Israeli citizenship is passed down by the mother, what makes a mother a mother? Rabbis negotiate with this conundrum and medical professionals at the religious hospital, in which Kahn carried out her study, were also greatly invested in the religious guidelines and their role in "creating mothers". For Muslims, similar questions of true descent are of primary concern, as well as the duty that individuals have to their spouses. Inhorn discusses the differences between the religious interpretations of the role of reproductive technologies between Sunni and Shi'a Muslims, in short, determining that Sunni's are much more strict in their interpretations while Shi'a allow for a more flexible interpretation that allows for these procedures in a more lenient way. I also read the piece by Lisa Handwerker titled, "The Politics of Making Modern Babies in China", which argued that the One Child Policy paradoxically created social pressures and obligations to have a child, which must be a "perfect" child, which sometimes means that the child must be a boy. In this way, reproductive technologies have been allowed to expand in China along side birth planning mechanisms such as contraception and abortions, while also reinforcing traditional patriarchal kinship values. All three of these readings are concerned with the origins of sperm and eggs, to whom the child rightfully belongs, the marriage status of a heterosexual couple, the quality of the child as determined by the quality of gametes as determined by the donor, and the legitimacy of descent.
These readings really hit on the ways in which new technologies have the potential to really complicate something that we have otherwise taken for granted. Creating a baby becomes a much more involved, psychic, spiritual, and moral process that involves the state, religious authorities, social pressures, and family stakes. These articles seem to generally be critical of the selective process through which the preferred baby is ensured, due to the fact that these preferences are informed by dominant narratives in that particular society of privilege and power. They are not super critical of the use of these technologies to screen for disease or disability, but not wholly uncritical. What do you all think of this tone? Is there a case when reproductive selection is acceptable or even advisable? Are these technologies tools to entrench a social power hierarchy? What are the expectations of technology in the role of formulating personhood?
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