This week we read three very different texts. Two of these works, “Gestational Surrogacy in Iran” and “The Social Construction of surrogacy research: An anthropological critique of the psychosocial scholarship on surrogate motherhood” addressed the issue of surrogacy from different perspectives, both using various ethnographic methods. The third text by Arthur Kleinman discussed how ethnographic research ties into the field of bioethics.
Shirin Garmaroudi Naef’s work “Gestational Surrogacy in Iran” lays out an interesting perspective on Shia Islam and the acceptance of gestational surrogacy as a morally licit practice. This text reminded me of the reading for Unit one, specifically the works by Marcia Inhorn and Morgan Clarke. Naef takes a similar ethnographic approach and conducts the study with both participant observation in infertility and IVF clinics in Tehran as well as talking to scholars at the center for Shia scholarship in Iran. The work is consequently grounded in two sections: one focusing on the religious and scholarly viewpoints with regard to surrogacy and the other focusing on gestational surrogacy in practice.
-Do you find it helpful that Naef’s work includes the opinions of both religious scholars and of individuals going through the surrogacy process?
Naef’s thesis is grounded in opposition to the work done by French anthropologist Heritier. Heritier bases much of his argument on the practice of milk kinship, in which the woman who breastfeeds a child becomes linked to the child in the sense that incest taboos prevent any type of relationship between these two individuals and their future kin. In this sense, incest is linked by the transmission of bodily fluids. In contrast, Naef’s thesis shifts the definition of incest to illicit sexual acts:
“I argue that the definition of incest in Shia thought and practice does not depend 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” (163).
It is through this thesis that Naef explains the permissibility of several practices of artificial reproductive technology in the Sunni religion. Through interviewing several religious leaders, the conclusion drawn is that:
“the distinction made here between physical contact and the transfer and contact of bodily substance in definition of adultery makes the fertilization of the woman’s egg with the sperm of another man other than her husband and then the implantation of the embryo in the woman’s womb religiously permissible” (165).
Naef continues to draw distinctions between Sunni and Shia scholarly thoughts with regard to maternal relatedness. While several Shia scholars of the past and most Sunni scholars believe that the mother is the person who gave birth to the child (citing a verse in the Quran), most Shia scholars today believe that the producer of the egg is the mother of the child (166).
Naef also finds support for the thesis of illicit sexual activity, not bodily fluid contact to be the reasoning behind the acceptance of surrogacy in Shia Islam when conducting interviews.
“The distinction that Farideh makes here between the act of gestation and the physical proximity through the (illicit) sexual act is a further reinforcement of this Shia thought. In other words, there is also a fundamental difference between reproduction and sexual intercourse in her thinking. Almost all the informants I interviewed referred to this distinction” (177).
-Did this reading change your perception with regard to how surrogacy is viewed within two sects of the same religion?
-Did you think Naef did enough to describe why Sunni and Shia Islam diverge with regard to the incest taboo and what is considered adultery?
The second article for today was “The social construction of surrogacy research: An anthropological critique of the psychosocial scholarship on surrogate motherhood” by Elly Teman. I liked that this article really challenged a lot of assumptions I had about surrogacy in the US, especially due to the portrayal of surrogacy in the media. Teman began by simply stating that over 99% of surrogate mothers willingly relinquish the child after birth (1104). When faced with individuals surprised with this statistic, Teman states “I suggest that this public uneasiness with the idea of surrogacy and the meta-narrative it engenders—of the surrogate who regrets her actions or refuses to relinquish—is more illustrative of the cultural anxieties that surrogacy encapsulates than that of the actual majority of cases” (1105).
-Were you surprised that 99% of surrogates willingly relinquish the child? Why or why not?
Teman bases her arguments on two assumptions set out by psychosocial literature on surrogacy. Teman states that these arguments have led to bias in the way that data on surrogacy is collected.
The first assumption is that surrogates are not “normal” women. Teman illustrates that the view of a woman who is willing to carry another woman’s child implies something about sexual deviance and adultery (1106).
-Does the link between surrogates and adultery described in Teman’s article seem similar to the issues raised in Sunni and Shia Islam?
The second assumption made in surrogacy research is that women who are surrogates can be “normal”, but only if then must they have a good reason to go through this process. I think that this is really captured well in the following passage:
“Whatever reason is proffered for her choice, the surrogate is constructed as deviant: Her altruism ranges beyond normative boundaries; her desire for money is constituted as greed or as a function of extreme poverty; or her reparative motive is indicative of past sins for which she must punish herself. By finding ways of constructing the surrogate as deviant, the scholarship “proves” that a “normal” and “natural” woman would not make such a choice unless compelled by a circumstance” (1108).
-Do you find this argument problematic? Do you see this issue reflected in the film we watched in class last week?
The last article of the week was “Moral Experience and ethical reflection: Can ethnography reconcile them? A Quandary for ‘The New Bioethics’” by Arthur Kleinman. In this article Kleinman discussed how important it is on a clinical and policy level for bioethics to relate “ethical deliberation to local contexts” through the use of ethnography (70).
Kleinman goes on to discuss how bioethics acts with principles that are out of touch with the status of many people it acts to help. “The irrelevance of ethics can be seen when considering universal ethical formulations of justice and equity that do not being with the local moral conditions of poor people, those experiencing the systematic injustice of higher disease rates and fewer health-care resources because of their positioning at the bottom of local social structures of power” (72). I found this really compelling because I feel like a lot of the new bioethics issues (think IVF, cloning, abortion procedures) are resources that are unequally available to only the wealthiest of people that perhaps discussing these exclusively ignores the ethical issues that are still affecting people living in countries with issues we think we’ve “solved” (disease rates, hygiene service, etc.).
To resolve this discrepancy, Kleinman suggests ethnography. He explains how “ethical standards can be applied in each case because a shared human nature assumes that, regardless of context, humans will universally bear the same moral sensibilities” (73). However, Kleinman also says that there “is no agreement on what human nature is” (74).
-Do you think humans have a shared human nature? If so, do you think that human nature is something that can be defined? (Think of how it is defined by the Catholic Church for instance)
Kleinman praises the ethnographic works of Paul Farmer, the famous physician-anthropologist for his work in Haiti as well as Rayna Rapp’s ethnography that we read in class. In the final section of his paper, Kleinman discusses what he considers to be a layout of the best methods anthropologists can use to present a compelling argument in the same way that Farmer and Rapp do. Some of these points are similar to what we discussed in class, such as the ethnographer discussing their position in the research, as a way of being self-reflective (91).
Overall I felt that Kleinman’s argument was well presented and interesting when it comes to focusing on what he considers a significant gap in bioethical works. What did you think of it?
Dear Diana,
Thanks for your post. I would like to ask if you agree with Kleinman’s position on ethnography as the all-telling analysis of society and culture. It seemed to me that his argument was that ethnography gets us closer to a definition of human nature. Do you think that’s true? I ask because I don’t agree, I think the ethnographic works we have read in class (one of which, Rapp’s book, he cites as a model) illuminate the sheer differences in human nature. He says that ethnography does the best job at capturing the essence of an individual human experience, and while I do think this is true I think this type of work gets us farther from a universal definition of what it is to be human. If anything I believe ethnographies which include personal narrative highlights the fact that individuals are just that–individual–and thus it makes it especially difficult to come up with a universal ethics. Take, for example, Naef’s ethnography. Through her work it becomes clear how important religious law is in Shia Islam and how unique this is to that specific practicing culture. I think that the fact that religious and even cultural “laws” apply so differently to different communities makes it hard to come up with any universal claims. What do you think?
-Hannah
Hey Hannah,
Super interesting thought. I like Kleinman’s argument but in a sense I might be a bit biased because I am an anthro major and I really find that ethnography is really an interesting and important tool in analyzing human nature. I guess after reading a diverse set of ethnographies makes it easy for us to focus on the differences, especially when we are reading them with an eye for what contrasting opinions are with regard to bioethical issues. I think that these texts do give us some type of universality-maybe even just in the fact that people are willing to talk about these issues and have expressed challenges with analyzing things through a religious or cultural moral lens. Do you think that’s enough?
Naef’s article stood out in my mind in terms of its differences to the typical Catholic position. Naef argues that most Shi’ites see conception and the conjugal act as completely separate. I can see how this kind of position would allow them to accept surrogacy along with many other ART’s like IVF. It is striking to me how Shi’ites continue to refuse gamete donation for the most part while remaining relatively open to many other technological possibilities. Naef didn’t talk about the temporary marital contract that allows gamete donation to occur; I wonder how prominent that practice actually is. Maybe it is more local to Lebanon where Martia Inhorn did her study. The rejection of gamete donation reveals the primary importance placed on lineage in many Islamic societies. I thought it was interesting that one woman Naef interviewed claimed that she was not open to the possibility of being a surrogate mother until her husband granted her permission. This was in direct contrast to what happened in the film we watched last week. The surrogate mother in the film made the decision behind her husband’s back. This shows exactly what Teman said in her article- that there is no one way to characterize surrogate mothers. I was surprised that 99% of surrogate mothers relinquish the babies willingly and with no problems. I can see how the media might reproduce and continue cultural ideas about the deviant behavior inherent in surrogacy. I agree with Teman that researchers need to be careful not to frame their studies in a way that reflects Western values, but I wonder how she might propose to modify specific studies to make them less ethnocentric. For example, she was concerned with the wording on some surveys that asked women whether they had any doubts over relinquishing the child to contracting mothers. The response choices were “no doubts, surrogate had doubts, and surrogate reluctant to relinquish child.” I think Teman goes too far in claiming that the framing of the question assumes that there might be doubts.
Thanks for your response Rachel!
One thing that I found actually pretty compelling in the Teman article was the way how she described studies formatted their questions (ex. no doubts, had doubts, and reluctant) because I think that the bias there shines through. Couldn’t a researcher just have used categories like “doubts, neutral, willing to relinquish”? That point Teman made had me thinking about different ways that surveys are phrased on a general level and how they reflect the researcher’s bias.
Rachel (and Diana)
Teman’s warning about making studies less ethno-centric also struck me as interesting. One thing I thought about when I read that was language. It is almost unavoidable to detach Western ideals when you must work within the confines of the English language. It made me thing about Tsipy Ivry’s book and how even though she had mastery over both of the languages in the communities she studied, she still had to find a way to put words and concepts into English terms. In a way language is the rate-limiting factor when considering how accurately one is depicting a culture.
That being said, I did have trouble with the concept she was referring to as “normalcy.” What is normal? It in a way sounds derogatory, especially in the situation where the surrogate is financially disadvantaged and is doing the act for money. That assumes that low socioeconomic status is abnormal. That rubs me the wrong way. That, to me, is taking a Western system of values and generalizing it to all surrogate women with rich complexities in stories and circumstances. It seemed to go against that idea of trying not to be ethnocentric when conducting ethnographic research.
Unit 10 Response:
Diana, I thought you had a well-written blog post. I really liked your use of quotes to help distinguish the differing beliefs of Sunni and Shia Muslims.
One aspect of Naef’s work which I enjoyed and found quite interesting is his description of “nasab”. He notes that in Sunni Islam, “nasab” refers towards male dominance and patrilineal succession. In Shia Islam, the idea of “nasab” is more leveled, giving females more authority than would be seen in Sunni Islam. The reason I found this interesting is because Naef mentions that these differing beliefs is one of the precursors to why Shia Muslims allow the use of surrogacy and Sunni Muslims do not. In Shia Islam, it is believed that male and female parts play an equal role in producing a child, so gender beliefs should be more balanced.
Between the two beliefs listed above, I side more with the Shia Islam belief because of the evenness seen between mother and father. Medical technology is only advancing, so finding new ways to interpret religious beliefs (in accordance with the law) is especially paramount, which is what I feel is seen in Shia Islam. As a result, a family is able to have a child and the consequences of infertility have been bypassed.
Hey Petar thanks so much for your comment!
I agree that I think the language in how a child is “made” with regard to the role of the mother and father can carry huge implications for gender beliefs as well as insights into reproductive technologies.
I’m not sure if I’d “agree” with either side of the Sunni Shia split with regard to surrogacy like you do, but I think both sides hold pretty compelling arguments, not only based in the Quran but also in reason.
Unit 10 Response
Hello Diana,
Thanks again for the light summary of our readings. I believe either showing or at least stating the fact Qur’anic verses are also used by “the majority of Shia…ascrib[ing] the maternity to the originator of the egg (137)” to support this point of view. While there seems to be a little bit of opposition in ideals with whom is the mother, it goes to show there is another religion that can have people on different sides of the debate despite being of the same religion.
In regards to your first question, I do think it was not only helpful but necessary for Naef’s article to have the different perspectives. It made the argument more convincing by seeing the different viewpoints and help me and other readers to understand the complexity of the topic at hand. To tie this to your next questions, this reading helped me to understand a little bit more about the two sects of this same religion in a way I have not seen before. This is especially true due to the fact I have little experience in learning about Islam.
When it came to reading Elly Teman’s article, I found it to give a better understanding in the relationship between the surrogate mother and the intended mother. I was not surprised by the statistic of only 1% of surrogates not wanting to relinquish the child.
Hey Paula,
Thanks for your response! I definitely agree with your thoughts on including both religious scholars and surrogates to be part of the conversation in Naef’s article. These perspectives came to conclusions that were almost surprisingly similar for me.
Dear Diana,
I thought it was really interesting that Naef included both religious scholars and people undergoing IVF in her work. I think especially in a country like Iran this is interesting where religious authorities aren’t only religious authorities but often also political authorities. This we are not only getting an insight into the Iranian religious standpoint on surrogacy but also the Iranian political standpoint on surrogacy. The reading certainly did change my opinion on surrogacy in Islam. I was very surprised to hear that that Shia and Sunni Muslims differ on this topic so starkly even though they use the same passage from the Quran as evidence for their reasoning.
I also thought Naef was doing a great job of describing the difference between Sunni and Shia Islam as it relates to incest. I also thought it was good that when doing so she used many Arabic-Islamic terms as well as Persian words in her text which made her reading more authentic and interesting.
Hey Keywan,
Thanks for your comment! I definitely agree with your thoughts on Naef incorporating Arabic-Islamic and Persian terms in her work, we’ve seen this in other ethnographies we’ve read in class and it makes the reading experience much more authentic for me as well.
Diana,
This was a great post! I loved how you connected this week’s reading to readings we had in Unit One. You not only detailed a summary of the texts, but you also talked compared their research methods. This helps to put the content of the articles in perspective. To answer your first question, I found it extremely helpful to have the opinions of both the religious scholars and the individuals going through the surrogacy process because the theoretical (religious) and actual (surrogates) opinions can be compared and contrasted.
Additionally, you added your opinion into the conversation and talked about how the texts changed your perspective on certain things as well as connecting ideas between readings for this week.
Furthermore, the argument that a surrogate is “deviant” despite the reason shows a one-side view of the decision made by the surrogate. She could just be wanted to help others have a baby because she has seen the joy her own children have given her, like the surrogate mother in the film we watched last week. She knew that the money for it was not the sole reason for her wanting to be a surrogate for others. She also wanted to help others.
Again, thank you for a detailed, integrated conversation!
Best,
Giang
Hey Giang,
Thanks for your comment! I totally agree with you on how the motives of a surrogate are often limited from a societal perspective. The film we watched last week kind of brought about those stereotypes from my point of view because it kept emphasizing the fact that the surrogate wasn’t getting paid enough. Of course this is a situation to situation issue and changes with each surrogate, but I think the filmmakers also went along with this pretense that Teman questions.