Genesis Chapter One and Two
The Book of Genesis is the opening story to the Hebrew Bible. This story explains the beginning of time and the creation of all things. There are many versions of this story with different translations and different verses. However, the story remains the same.
The first chapter of Genesis describes the creation of all things. God looked into a void of darkness and commended for light to come. For seven days, he continues to add and create things. He began with Heaven and Earth, making sure to bring light, land, seas, vegetation, and animals. Not long after, God desired a creature of his own kind. From the dirt and soil of the Earth he created, he makes a man, and from that man, he retrieves a rib to create a woman. Thus, the creation of Adam and Eve. It took a total of seven days for the Earth and Heavens to be created. When God was finished with his creation, he made sure to create a planet where humans can sustain themselves and reproduce.
At the end of the second chapter of Genesis, there were a few quotes I wanted to address, “And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” (2.22-25). These lines hold an image of a man and a woman. Concluding that Genesis believes that man and woman are to be together because a woman came from man. This concept of a perfect union plays an important role in our further readings and dictates a lot of future ideas surrounding artificial reproduction.
Religion and Artificial Reproduction: An Inquiry into the Vatican “Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origin and on the Dignity of Reproduction.
This article was very difficult for me to read because it required that I come out of my comfort zone. This article gives us a perspective of the Catholic Church and consists of three main concepts: respect for embryos from the moment of fertilization, technology intervention in human procreation, and the relationship between a person and their faith and how this relationship deems what is morally right and wrong when it comes to artificially reproduce.
There is a belief within this community that embryos deserve and should be given the same respect we would give a grown human being because it is believed that humans must be respected from the first moment of their existence. This is what I consider to be a very “grey area” topic. I personally believe that a person cannot simply be for it or against it because there are many factors involved. Initially, I believed this concept to be too strict and questioned why an embryo would hold so much precedent compared to its mother. I can understand why embryos may deserve respect because they grow and form into fetuses and grow to become humans. However, embryos are only days and weeks old, should they hold such importance compared to their mothers?
Along with this strict ideology, the article also mentions that though medicine and the abilities and opportunities to procreate are expanding, it is important to note the morality behind these acts. Before continuing with the acts of procreating with the aid of reproductive technology, it is important to initially consider how it would affect religion and how morally right it is. An example would be surrogacy. The act of creating a child through surrogacy is frowned upon because the child should be born out of wedlock, and having a surrogate involved is similar to having the surrogate involved in the marriage. Another example of procreating with the aid of reproductive technology being frowned upon is the idea of man playing the role of God. By choosing to create the life and the death of an embryo, a man is playing the role of God because he is creating and destroying.
Reproducing Jews: A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception in Israel.
Susan Kahn shed light on the experiences of unmarried Jewish women living in Israel. I was very surprised to discover that it is better to live the life of a single mother with no other support than it is to be a single woman. Kahn brings to light how important culture plays a role in how we dictate reproducing. In Jewish culture, the women are driven by the desire to have children. However, it is not considered “natural” for women at young ages (below 30-35) to want or need artificial reproductive technology.
I found it very interesting that there does not need to be a marriage in order for a woman to reproduce. I also found it very interesting how great of an impact the Jewish religion plays on the choices of sperm donors. It is important that Jewish women choose sperm donors who are also Jewish in order to keep the Jewish lineage “pure”. This is interesting to me because to be born into the Jewish religion, the mother has to be Jewish.
Another topic that interested me is the idea that though Jewish women are encouraged to keep the lineage pure with Jewish sperm, a married Jewish woman may not accept the sperm donation from another Jewish man. In the eyes of the Mamzerut, this is considered adultery. However, if the married Jewish woman receives sperm from a man who is not Jewish it is seen as morally right because this law is only confined to the “Jewish Blood”. I found this fascinating because once again it is placing importance upon the embryo/fetus and is not taking the mother’s or father’s predicaments into consideration. I enjoyed Kahn emphasizing how big of a role culture and society plays within our decisions.
Ethnography, Exegesis and Jewish Ethical Reflection: The New Reproductive Technologies in Israel.
Similar to Susan Kahn’s point of culture playing a major role in our decisions, Dr. Don Seeman believes that culture plays an important role in how societies govern bioethics. I enjoyed reading this article because it placed an important role in the anthropological perspective of the bioethics. I agree that medical anthropology is very important and should be considered more often when evaluating situations similar to this one because many important cultural factors are oftentimes overlooked.
I also find the Natural Law of Moral Theory to be fascinating because it explains this anthropological perspective very well. The standards by which we govern our lives are tied to our societies behavior. This theory is dependent on culture and society. However, I believe culture and nature to be intertwined.
Sources
Donum Vitae
In Shanon, Thomas A. and Lisa Sowle Cahill, Religion and Artificial Reproduction: An Inquiry into the Vatican “Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origin and on the Dignity of Reproduction.” (Crossroad, 1988).
Susan Martha Kahn
Reproducing Jews: A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception in Israel (Duke University Press, 2000).
Don Seeman
“Ethnography, Exegesis and Jewish Ethical Reflection: The New Reproductive Technologies in Israel.” In Daphna Birenbaum-Carmeli and Yoram S. Carmeli editors, Kin, Gene, Community: Reproductive Technologies Among Jewish Israelis (Berghahn Books, 2010), pp. 340-362.
Genesis, Chapter 1 and 2
I appreciated the quote you pulled from the book of Genesis. I agree that it is at the center of many bioethical questions. I want to ask you why you think the debate for how to treat and view an embryo tends to lean towards mother vs. embryo and which is more important rather than situation based? I understand you briefly addressed this problem but was hoping you could expand. I enjoyed reading your opinions within the summaries of each article.
I enjoyed reading your blog, and found it interesting that you took the biblical viewpoint of procreation and compared and contrasted it to the modern sense. It definitely is a “grey-area issue” as you stated. Also, I liked how you brought Kahn’s opinion on the matter into your post.
I agree with Linda that the “Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation” was somewhat awkward, though very interesting to read through. I’m the daughter of an OB for generally high-risk, low-income patients, and my upbringing surrounding this subject was completely different. It ended up being one of my favorite readings of this week because of how starkly different the beliefs in it were to mine.
I like how you concluded with the phrase that nature and culture are intertwined. I feel like the incorporation of the question of whether embryos are as important as their mothers regardless of only being days and weeks old would be more interesting if you added a cultural perspective and/or assumptions based on the two main religions the articles dealt with. I also found sperm donations to a Jewish woman from another Jewish man being considered as adultery controversial yet fascinating.
Great post, Linda! I agree with your statement about giving embryos and an actual human being of equal precedent to be a bit odd or new to me. Although my own religion holds a similar belief, I also believe that there are other factors that must be considered when considering the value of an embryo and its mother. An issue that has stuck out to me is that many scholars seem to be focused on one aspect or layer of a very broad topic. They have managed to generalize things to become simple when in reality there are multiple aspects that must be examined.
I enjoyed reading both Cutler’s and Linda’s blogs. Both of you provided thorough reviews and insights into the reading. I also appreciate that you were both transparent regarding your own biases.
I agree with both of you that the Vatican article was hard to read. Despite having spent some time at Catholic school and respecting many aspects of that faith, this document leaves a negative perception of the church in my mind. Logically, the entire argument hinges on life beginning at conception and procreation as strictly the product of a conjugal relationship. They do not explain the biblical justification or resolve any potential biblical conflicts regarding these two arguments.
As Linda and Cutler point out, Kahn’s book discusses some fo the contradictions and explains why they can/do exist. This is in contrast to the Vatican, which reads as if the authors believe there are no contradictions.
Dr. Seeman’s article ties the Catholic and Jewish perspectives together by exploring their biblical and philosophical origins. As he points out, alternative reproduction appears in the bible, although the means were different. I would love to see the Catholic Church’s interpretation of these surrogacy biblical situations.
Great Blog! I think you demonstrated a good grasp of the readings for this module. In the section of your blog “Religion and Artificial Reproduction: An Inquiry into the Vatican “Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origin and on the Dignity of Reproduction”, I have to agree that it personally took me out of my comfort zone. As someone who was raised in the Catholic church, I definitely saw many of these concerns from the text being discussed. I will say however, that I have personally seen how new reproductive technologies are seen differently by different cultures and generations. In addition to being raised catholic, I’m also Mexican American, and I can attest how strongly Mexican catholics have opinions about reproduction. Yet, the younger generations have a much more “lenient” point of view than older generations. I think it would be interesting to explore those differences among cultures and generations.
I agree that it is very interesting how the Jewish culture according to the account by Kahn has created the unique scenario of encouraging unmarried women to use sperm from Jewish men but to forbid the use of Jewish sperm for married women in the case of gamete donation. I also empathize with your statement on how you struggle to agree with the position that an embryo has the same rights as an adult human. It’s hard (and potentially dangerous) to validate a viewpoint that we feel violates our own rights, but I agree that the personhood of an embryo IS a very gray issue, as you have described it.
I enjoyed reading your post, and thought you did a thorough job of summarizing the readings in addition to providing your own opinions with sufficient evidence. I appreciate your honesty in acknowledging that the Vatican article was outside of your comfort zone and do agree that this is in fact a “gray area.” I also found your analysis of Kahn’s representation of unmarried Jewish women living in Israel to be interesting, especially how you highlighted how evident it is that culture plays a role here in dictating our perceptions.
I very much enjoyed reading your blog post!! Having also written a blog this week, I want to commend you for your skills of summarization and the presentation of points that differ from what I articulated in my own post.
I wanted to say that you were not alone in feeling outside of your comfort zone reading the article that centralized around Catholic theology. Because of how strictly the information was written, it made it a little difficult to fully understand as a non-Catholic individual. However, you did a good job in summarizing your points and articulating both your concerns and your struggles with this week’s readings!
You did a very nice job on analyzing the readings for this week. I was able to relate on the part where you have stated that ” person cannot simply be for it or against it because there are many factors involved.” Like you’ve stated, I also think that when considering the lives of embryos and their mothers, many things should be considered not just one; I think it is definitely not an easy issue that people can talk about and determine what is right or wrong. The readings were heavy materials but overall, you did a great job on revealing your own opinion and perspective.
I liked the common thread that you made between all the readings, that culture plays an important role in the decision making the process for an individual. In the last sentence of your post, you argue that nature and culture should be intertwined. What did you mean by “nature” in this sense? Is it relating to the “nature” of rational beings from Aquinas’s Natural Law Theory? Or “nature” as relating to science and biology? I didn’t see any other support for this conclusion in your post which mostly focused on culture’s impact.
I enjoyed reading your blog post, and liked that you included your own views in the discussion. I agree with you that the concept of treating an embryo the same as a living person is a difficult area to navigate. I found your description of the Jewish tradition of forbidding a mother to accept a sperm donation from a Jewish man, but allowing a donation from a non-Jewish man. Although I’m Jewish, I had never known about this concept, and it was fascinating to hear the explanation of it.