To start things off I will be discussing Shirin Garamoudi Naef’s “Gestational Surrogacy in Iran.” Gestational surrogacy is a form of surrogacy in which the surrogate is not the provider of the female gamete and only gestates another couples’ embryo. In other words, this reproductive science requires the involvement of another woman (that is not the mother) who is able to carry a specific couples’ baby and ultimately give birth to it. It is a very viable solution to infertility for couples that want to have children, and has been on the rise in countries like Iran. As this form of surrogacy has become increasingly popular, public debate surrounding it has also risen particularly between Shia and Sunni branches of Islam.
The majority of Shia Muslims consider this method of assisted reproduction as viable and legitimate through the lens of Islamic law, as long as it is only accessible for infertile couples that are married. Although Shia Muslims approve this method of reproduction, in Sunni Islam, the use of donor gametes and surrogacy is unacceptable and is regarded as analogous to Zina, which basically means it is considered adultery. The basis of Shirin Garamoudi Naef’s reading is focused on an analysis of Shia legal positions regarding the appropriateness and legitimacy of gamete donation and surrogacy.
A primary reason Shia authorities disagree with the mindset that surrogacy and the use of donor gametes is adultery, is because this form of reproduction does not involve or require the physical act of sexual intercourse. The Shia notion of unlawful sexual intercourse (zina) is not dependent on the biological result that stems from the contact and transfer of bodily fluids, but rather it is dependent on the illegitimate physical act that occurs via illicit sexual intercourse between a man and a woman primarily for pleasure and not for conception. It is in the lens of this logic that a large number of Shia scholars have put their stamp of approval on the use of third-party donations and surrogacy as means of assisted reproduction under specific conditions. Shia culture essentially “leaves room for the legal permissibility of a third-party donation and surrogacy” (page 158).
Additionally, Shia support of these reproductive methods are centered on the question of Nasab, which is a term derived from a series of patronymics, that ultimately indicates a person’s heritage in Arab culture. Sunni notions of Nasab take an agnatic stance, having means of heritage pass through the male figure. Meanwhile, Shia notions of heritage take a gender-balanced approach and recognize that maternal and paternal filiations are distinguished in many regards to be equal or proportional in determining one’s ancestral roots. Thus, leaving more room in regards to accepting artificial insemination and gamete donation.
However, an issue in the debate between Shia and Sunni Muslims in regards to these reproductive methods is that the definition of bodily substances is clouded, and still remains extremely tied to defining kinship and incest. A key example the author uses is breast milk and questions the notion of if it should be discussed when considering something to be incest or adultery. Ultimately, rhetoric of incest does not follow a universal grammar. “For the definition of incest in Shia thought and practice is not dependent on the transfer or contact of bodily substances, rather it depends on the illegitimate physical act of illicit sexual intercourse and not on the act of conception itself” (Page 163). The author is using this to show how one can do something that is considered adultery in Sunni culture, yet not in Shia culture.
Overall, the act of insemination and conception resulting from the physical and social act of sex without a marriage is considered adultery, thus getting assisted conception involving third party donation to not be considered adultery is essentially the only way to legitimize the practice and is how Shia culture defends their stance that is severely opposed by Sunni culture. As I transition into the 2nd reading of this week, I must note that this first reading was extremely focused on religious’ viewpoints and stances, while our 2nd reading by Elly Teman was quite the opposite, taking the refreshing approach of a social constructionist.
Elly Teman’s article focuses in on surrogate mothers, and their motivations for agreeing to agree to such a thing. Teman essentially analyzes the cultural assumptions that “normal” women would never volunteer to do such a ridiculous thing as become pregnant with the predetermined decision to give away the child for money. She starts of her analysis by discussing how basically the entire majority (over 99%) of surrogate mothers do not bond with their newborn babies after they are given away to the infertile couples that have hired them. Most surrogates have even reported that giving away the baby has been a satisfying event or celebration and that they would consider engaging in surrogacy again. The narrative of the surrogate mother who begins to regret her decision and attempts to reclaim the child she gave birth to has very little foundation in reality, despite its stereotypes that exist in television, film and popular journalism (one such example that comes to my mind is the movie Baby Mama with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler).
As Teman is enabling her audience to view surrogacy via a social constructionist lens she had one sentence that really captured my attention. Teman writes, “Surrogacy constructs families through the marketplace, making them a matter of choice rather than fate and revealing that families are social constructs” (page 2). A key phrase that struck me in this sentence is “marketplace” due to its connotations that surrogacy is in fact part of the financial markets. I find it fascinating how such a complex concept of forming families relates directly back to such an artificial socially constructed concept such as money.
I also want to note that Teman mentions that giving birth to a child for the sole purpose of giving it away way is extremely threatening to dominant ideologies in many cultures that rely on an “indissoluble mother-child bond,” as we just read about in this week’s first reading and have been constantly discussing throughout the semester. For surrogacy truly does present itself as a direct challenge to the ideology of motherhood, despite its blatantly positive impacts on infertile couples. Yet although surrogacy shatters conventional religious beliefs surrounding motherhood, it also reveals that our entire belief in motherhood is entirely socially constructed, and does not have to be the natural, desired and concrete goal of all women should they want to be considered normal.
From here, Teman focuses on how many psychologists have tried to run tests that would distinguish surrogate mothers from “normal” women. Some of these studies focused on finding differences in terms of morality, while others focused on surrogate mothers’ attitude toward attachment and bonding. Teman writes, “To my knowledge, none of the studies have successfully located any ‘‘abnormal’’ personality traits among surrogates, yet continuous attempts have been made to prove otherwise over more than 20 years” (page 3). It is almost laughable how modern psychologists think there must be something wrong with a woman who agrees to be a surrogate. I’m not implying that I do not find the concept a little strange, because I definitely do, due to the fact that it violates such a concrete norm in our society. I’m just amused by the fact that for over 20 years they have kept trying to find some kind of abnormality when one clearly doesn’t exist based on the evidence. Nonetheless I found this reading very refreshing in the sense that it discussed the topic of surrogacy through a non-religious lens and was very easy to follow and comprehend.
Furthermore, our last reading of the week by Arthur Kleinman discussed how despite the advancements in bioethics over the years and the clear benefits the science poses to society, it is still clouded by extreme controversy that is only getting stronger. There has been a vast amount of efforts to repair and reform bioethics in recent years, yet none of these have come close to solving the unprecedented morale issues such a wide ranging of cultural and religious groups have with the science. For bioethics is extremely tied to morality and certainly requires a loose view of certain “traditional” aspects of society and life should it be worthy of any one man or woman’s support. In essence, Kleinman discusses how the only way to change the light in which bioethics is considered in, someone would have to work extremely hard to mediate the “immense differences in the social and personal realities of morale life with the need to apply a universal standard to those fragments that can ultimately foster not only comparison and evaluation but also action” (page 2). In reading this quote it becomes clear that bioethics will not be able to continue functioning unless someone finds a way of relating ethical deliberation and validity to the many religious and cultural groups that oppose it so venomously.
Kleinman takes on a really challenging task towards the beginning of his article, and that is that he attempts to define morality. He talks about how one forms their own morale experience or sense of ethical deliberation due to their own multidimensional experience with life. Kleinman implies that moral experience is about the local processes one has that realize values in ordinary living. I’m not entirely sure what this means, but to my best guess, Kleinman is basically saying that everyone develops their sense of the term morality differently, and this variation in morality across the entire world is dependent on one’s upbringing, the values they are taught by their parents, the way they learn to interact with people and how they experience interpersonal connections throughout their life, as well as the subjective values they observe in the society in which they exist in. Furthermore, in my attempt to address what this all means and why Kleinman wants his audience to know this, my best guess is that this is a key reason as to why bioethics is so widely controversial. So many different cultures and societies across the world have their own definition of morality, thus it is essentially impossible to appeal to everyone’s sense of ethical deliberation and justify such a controversial science. And this state of unknowing what to do, this state of perplexity surrounding bioethics is what Kleinman deems the quandary.
Kleinman’s first proposal as means of approaching the quandary of bioethics is centered on human nature. He suggests that ethical standards can be applied to different issues across the world because a shared human nature is present in all humans that provide them with some common sense of morality. Kleinman then uses ethnography as means of validating the morale complication surrounding bioethics. In other words, he uses ethnography to allow people to find common morale ground in their discussion of bioethics because he feels that ethnography represents a very viable way to get people to solve the bioethicist’s dilemma.
Notably Kleinman mentioned the Rayna Rapp ethnography that we discussed earlier this semester. Kleinman writes, “It is hard to imagine a more illuminating approach to such controversial issues as abortion across distinct ethic and social class networks” (page 17). I completely agree with him and think this is such a good example for him to use in his argument. Rayna Rapp focuses on the ethics and morality that accompany different people’s experience with reproductive technology and the dramatic life choices the science creates. In doing so, she is exposing the different morale landscapes of each of her subjects, and Kleinman is using her findings to show how people of different morale backgrounds and senses of ethical deliberation have acted extremely similar in the sense that they have all judged the quality of a fetus and made the decision of whether it will or will not enter the moral community of which they exist in.
Conclusively, a key theme I have found across all three readings is that of policy and how to best form it on reproductive technologies and methods. From this course I have learned that there are so many contrasting viewpoints based on such different religious and cultural stances, causing the whole idea of forming policies to become quite overwhelming. Thus, I will leave you all with this question. What do you think is the best way to form policies? I personally don’t think there is one and am not sure if there ever will be… I think our best shot is in Kleinman’s approach.