Main description:

Israel is the only country in the world that offers free fertility treatments to nearly any woman who requires medical assistance. It also has the world's highest per capita usage of in-vitro fertilization. Examining state policies and the application of reproductive technologies among Jewish Israelis, this volume explores the role of tradition and politics in the construction of families within local Jewish populations. The contributors-anthropologists, bioethicists, jurists, physicians and biologists-highlight the complexities surrounding these treatments and show how biological relatedness is being construed as a technology of power; how genetics is woven into the production of identities; how reproductive technologies enhance the policing of boundaries. Donor insemination, IVF and surrogacy, as well as abortion, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis and human embryonic stem cell research, are explored within local and global contexts to convey an informed perspective on the wider Jewish Israeli environment.

Contents:

List of Tables and Figures

Introduction: Reproductive Technologies among Jewish Israelis: Setting the Ground

Daphna Birenbaum-Carmeli and Yoram S. Carmeli

PART I: KIN: REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES AND THE QUEST FOR BIOGENETIC PARENTHOOD

Chapter 1. The Contribution of Israeli Researchers to Reproductive Medicine: Fertility Experts' Perspectives

Shlomo Mashiach, Daphna Birenbaum-Carmeli, Roy Mashiach and Martha Dirnfeld

Chapter 2. The Regulation of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis for Sibling Donors in Israel, Germany and England: A Comparative Look at Balancing Risks and Benefits

Yael Hashiloni-Dolev and Shiri Shkedi

Chapter 3. The Man in the Sperm: Kinship and Fatherhood in Light of Male Infertility in Israel

Helene Goldberg

Chapter 4. The Last Outpost of the Nuclear Family: A Cultural Critique of Israeli Surrogacy Policy

Elly Teman

Chapter 5. Adoption and Assisted reproduction Technologies: A Comparative Reading of Israeli Policies

Daphna Birenbaum-Carmeli and Yoram S. Carmeli

PART II: GENE: REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES AND THE QUEST FOR THE PERFECT CHILD

Chapter 6. Genetic Testing and Screening in Religious Groups: Perspectives of Jewish Haredi Communities

Barbara Prainsack and Gil Siegal

Chapter 7. Ultrasonic Challenges to Pronatalism

Tsipi Ivry

Chapter 8. Abortion Committees as Agents of Eugenics: Medical and Public Views on Selective Abortion following Mild or Likely Fetal Pathology

Nitzan Rimon-Zarfaty and Aviad Raz

Chapter 9. Cultural Values in Action: The Israeli Approach to Human Cloning

Gali Ben-Or and Vardit Ravitsky

PART III: COMMUNITY: A SELF-PORTRAIT WITH TECHNOLOGY

Chapter 10. Art, Community and Beyond: Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research in Israel

Interviews with Prof. Nissim Benvenisty and Prof. karl Skorecki Interviewer: Daphna Birenbaum-Carmeli

Chapter 11. Medicine and the State. The Medicalization of Reproduction in Israel

Yali Hashash-Daniel

Chapter 12. The Mirth of the Clinic: The Banality of Conception in an Israeli Fertility Clinic

Susan M. Kahn

Chapter 13. Between Reproductive Citizenship and Consumerism: Attitudes Towards Assisted Reproductive Technologies among Jewish and Arab Israeli Women

Larissa Remennick

Chapter 14. Ethnography, Exegesis, and Jewish Ethical Reflection: The New Reproductive Technologies in Israel

Don Seeman

Notes on Contributors