Racial Eugenics in Israel
- From: Charles.Wong.14@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 07:22:12 -0000
http://home.comcast.net/~nuenke/Israel.pdf
BETWEEN MOTHERS, FETUSES AND SOCIETY: REPRODUCTIVE GENETICS IN THE
ISRAELI-JEWISH CONTEXT
Yael Hashiloni-Dolev
Studies have shown that Israeli women and the Israeli legal, religious
and medical establishments are exceptionally supportive of
reproductive
genetics and its outcomes, in the form either of selective abortions
based
on the unborn child's prospective health, or of prevention of carriers
of
the same recessive genetic anomaly from marrying each other.
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 pressured to engage
in
the selection of their embryos, or, in the ultra-Orthodox community,
to
marry according to "genetic compatibility." Where other theories
understand
this as deriving from collective ideals of bodily perfection that 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 such issues as the biocultural concept of
"life"
and that of 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 upon my recently completed
doctoral research comparing the fields of reproductive genetics in
Israel
and Germany.
130
Yael Hashiloni-Dolev
Introduction
The practice of reproductive genetics in Israel is a part of a
national culture
of fertility, and more specifically of a culture of new reproductive
technologies.
1 Various writers have shown Israeli society to be very family-
oriented,
with high marriage rates, relatively low divorce rates and high birth
rates.2 A
complex combination of factors, including identification with the
collective
goal of fighting the "demographic threat" (that the country's Arab
population
might eventually outnumber the Jews);3 the need to "make Jewish
babies,"4
particularly in the wake of the Holocaust; and the threat of losing a
child in war
or in a terrorist attack are all said to have influenced Israel's pro-
natalist culture.
A further factor is Jewish tradition, which sees parenthood as a moral
and
religious commandment and treats infertility as a severe disability.5
Moreover,
women's infertility is an archetype of suffering in the Israeli/Jewish
imagination.
6 The duty to reproduce falls upon all members of society, including
its
highest religious authorities; the ideal of celibacy is absent from
Judaism.7
While it has repeatedly been argued that the Israeli medical practice
of new
reproductive technologies (NRTs) and its accompanying legislation
reflect
this positive evaluation of parenthood,8 less attention has been paid
to the
other, complementary side of the warm adoption of NRTs in Israel. NRTs
are also used to prevent the birth of children with genetic "defects,"
either
by performing selective abortions based on the unborn child's
prospective
health,9 or by preventing two carriers of the same recessive genetic
anomaly
from marrying, as is common in the ultra-Orthodox community.10
Compared
to most other medically advanced nations, Israel seems to have
embraced the
practice of prenatal diagnosis (PND) and premarital genetic testing to
a far
greater extent.
[ . . . ]
Complete text is at http://home.comcast.net/~nuenke/Israel.pdf
http://www.neoeugenics.com/
http://www.neoeugenics.com/
http://www.neoeugenics.com/
http://www.neoeugenics.com/
http://www.neoeugenics.com/
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