יום ד' ,   18.1.06,   18:00 - 20:00
Sackler School of Medicine, Room 201

ד''ר יעל השילוני-דולב, החוג למדעי התנהגות,
הפקולטה לרפואה ע"ש סאקלר, אוני' תל אביב

Between Mothers, Fetuses and Society:
Reproductive Genetics in the Israeli-Jewish Context

Studies have shown that Israeli women and the Israeli legal, religious and medical establishments are exceptionally supportive of reproductive genetics and its outcomes, whether in the form of selective abortions based on the unborn child’s prospective health, or by preventing two carriers of the same recessive genetic anomaly from marrying.

While reproductive genetics has been intensely criticized throughout the western world, criticism has been more or less absent from Israeli-Jewish society. Indeed, Israeli women are heavily pressurized to engage in the selection of their embryos, or, in the ultra-orthodox community, to marry according to "genetic compatibility". While other theories understand this to result from collective ideals of bodily perfection which push for the selection of future generations, I ask why inhibitions concerning Prenatal Diagnosis (PND) and its more immediate meanings are lacking. In order to answer this question, I draw on culturally-specific Israeli-Jewish understandings of different issues, such as: the biocultural concept of "life" and a "life worthy of living" versus "wrongful life"; the moral standing of the fetus and its mother; and Jewish-Zionist attitudes towards science, medicine and eugenics.

Reflections offered in this essay draw on my recently completed doctoral research comparing the fields of reproductive genetics in Israel and Germany.