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