Post 1-Nihu Bhardwaj

Throughout time, the importance of reproduction and kinship has been viewed in the light of religion. For Jews and Christians, the Genesis serves as a basis by which God directly tells them how and who to consider as their kin. The way they interpret what is said, especially in the first two chapters of the Genesis, significantly affects their views on who is kin and how that person is kin. The first chapter of the Genesis talks about how God created mankind in his likeness (1:26) so that they could, essentially, rule over the Earth in place of him. After God had created everything, he gave man a “helper suitable for him” (2:18). Eventually, this helper literally came from man himself, to show the inseparable union between man and woman. The man and woman now have this bond through which there were able to fulfill God’s blessing of being “fruitful and increasing in number” (1:28).  This has been interpreted to mean that mankind was given the gift of reproduction, and one way or another, had to fulfill this purpose. Human reproduction is seen as something that God directly told man had to be done in order to increase their presence in this world. And this reproduction had to be done between a man and woman that were fortified together by a very strong bond, which is usually seen as marriage.

This interpretation of reproduction and kinship in the Genesis, as mentioned earlier, differs between Jews and Christians. As mentioned in Dr. Seeman’s article on “Reproductive Technologies among Jewish Israelis”, Jews use both the Genesis and the Leviticus. The Genesis is used for their idea of marriage, the traditional marriage that is typically seen. The Leviticus, on the other hand, is used to focus on “claims about permitted and forbidden reproductive practices” (Seeman 346). Based on this, the Leviticus is seen to be what is referred to for the legality of reproduction. Christians, on the other hand, use the Genesis to understand both marriage and reproducing. As later described in Seeman’s text, Catholics use the text to “focus on what can be derived from narrative rather than legal portion of the biblical text” (Seeman 348). Thus, one of the reasons behind the differences in interpretation is through how the Genesis itself is used by religions: legality versus narrative. In general, the Genesis gives us the idea of creating a family, however, what to do with that information is up to interpretation by the two religions. This is why there is a major difference in the understanding of a fundamental life concept between Jews and Catholics.

Nevertheless, these differences also come from the importance of how one determines what kinship means. Does kinship come from genetics? Or is everything passed down matrilineally? How does one define a child that meets the religion’s requirements, as well as the reproductive needs of the parents? From the “Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation”, it is clear that the view of the Catholic Church on kinship comes strictly from marriage. A child must come from the egg of the wife and the sperm of the husband. If the couple is having reproductive issues, like infertility, then the only option that is acceptable to the Catholic Church is homologous artificial insemination or IVF with the husband’s sperm. They understand that some couples do not have the ability to procreate and would like to, but the main point they emphasize is that having a child is not “an object to which one has a right…. rather, a child is a gift, ‘the supreme gift’ and the most gratuitous gift of marriage” (Shannon and Cahill, 168). Basically, even though it seems like one must have children in marriage, they don’t necessarily have to. For Catholics, the emphasis on procreation isn’t on creating children; it’s more on valuing the life they are about to bring into the universe, from the moment of conception. Thus, the Church is looking at reproduction and kinship from a moralistic/ ethical view. For this reason, they have very stringent regulations on reproductive biotechnology. Homologous IVF is seen as the only viable option because it uses the egg and sperm from both parents, so the child will be genetically related to both. The other options are either not morally righteous or the child will be related to only one of the parents, which brings about its own problems. So, from the view of the Catholics, kinship emphasizes and depends on genetics and being able to trace your lineage from both parents.

Jews, on the other hand, seem more open-minded to the idea of using reproductive biotechnology. One reason is because they don’t focus as much on the Book of Genesisfor reproduction, like Christians do. However, it is mainly due to how they interpret kinship. For them, family comes matrilineally. Likewise, there is a huge pressure placed on women to have children, even if they are not married. In Susan Kahn’s book Reproducing Jews, we saw this emphasis on creating a family, and the support the country of Israel gave these women. Kahn looked at reproduction from the viewpoint of single, older-aged women who were not married to show how the laws of religion played a role in their reproduction. Overall, though, the rabbis say that it is okay for women to bear a child if done through artificial insemination. How strict the rabbi is on whether the sperm comes from the father, or a Jewish sperm-donor or from a non-Jewish sperm-donor, depended on the women and how strictly of a Jew she was. Ideally, married couples who were having reproductive issues could get IVF done. However, Susan Kahn was looking at this from a non-ideal perspective of unmarried women who needed to fulfill their duty of producing another Jew. Compared to the Catholics, the Jews placed an emphasis on having children, whether or not they were completely genetically related to both parents or completely Jew. This was because the way a Jew was defined differed from the way Christians or Euro-Americans see kin. Hence why it seems that the Jews were more lenient towards reproductive biotechnology. Something important to note, however, is that Jewish women and couples didn’t prioritize using artificial insemination or other reproductive technologies for having kids; instead, they used as a last resort after having flushed out all other options.

After comparing the views on this topic between Judaism and Christianity, one could see how there are multiple factors at play here besides the interpretation of the Genesis. How strict one is in their faith, how progressive they are with their religion, the emphasis on carrying on one’s lineage versus the importance of life, the importance of culture along with many other factors played an important role in the views of the religious priests and followers of both these religions. Looking at these topics through an ethnographic perspective allowed for a more humanized understanding of the problems these people were going through and why (or why not) using these reproductive technologies would be important. By just reading religious texts, it is up to interpretation of the individual. But through analyzed understandings of the culture, religion and people, it allows for various perspectives to be shown that emphasize different factors important for one religious group versus another. Additionally, it allows for comparisons to be drawn between varying groups to show how practices in one may or may not be the same as in another. It is through these ethnographic approaches that some of the religious decisions can be brought about, in regards to a heavy topic like reproduction and kinship.

Citations:

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.

Donum Vitae In Shanon, Thomas A. and Lisa Sowle Cahill, Religion and Artificial Reproduction: AnInquiry 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).