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Diasporic Dreaming: “Return Reproductive Tourism” to the Middle East
- University of Wisconsin Press
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113 Di asporic Dream ing “Re turn Re pro duc tive Tour ism” to the Mid dle East mar cia c. in horn The Eth nog ra phy of an Emerg ing Glo bal Tech nol ogy In 1978, Louise Brown, the world’s first in vitro fer til iza tion (IVF) baby, was born in En gland. In 1980, the first Is lamic fatwa on med i cally as sisted re pro duc tion was writ ten, al low ing IVF to be under taken by in fer tile mar ried Mus lim cou ples. In 1986, the first IVF clin ics opened in three Mid dle East ern Mus lim coun tries, Egypt, Jor dan, and Saudi Ara bia. In 1988, while still a med i cal anthro pol ogy grad u ate stu dent, I ar rived in Egypt in an at tempt to under stand the in fer til ity ex pe ri ences of poor urban women seek ing bio med i cal treat ment in a pub lic ma ter nity hos pi tal in Alex an dria. This par tic u lar hos pi tal as pired to offer IVF to Egypt’s poor; thus, women were clam or ing to the clinic from all over the coun try. In deed, by 1991, the hospital’s first IVF baby was born (In horn 1994). In that same year, intra cy to plas mic sperm in jec tion (ICSI), a var i ant of IVF de signed to over come male in fer til ity, was intro duced in Bel gium. And by 1994, IVF phy si cians in Cairo had brought ICSI to Egypt, creat ing mas sive de mand for this new as sisted re pro duc tive tech nol ogy (ART). In 1996, I re turned to Egypt to study the ex pe ri ences of mostly elite in fer tile Egyp tian cou ples who were seek ing ac cess to both IVF and ICSI (In horn 2003). Many of these Egyp tian cou ples were trans na tional labor mi grants to the petro-rich Arab Gulf who were re turn ing on “IVF hol i days” to Egypt. Al though the term re pro duc tive tour ism had yet to be coined by the media, it was clear that Egyp tian cou ples were cross ing inter na tional bor ders in their “quests for con cep tion” (In horn 1994). 114 marcia c. inhorn By 1999, what had been a ma jor ity Sunni Is lamic ban on third-party re pro duc tive as sis tance—that is, no sperm do na tion, egg do na tion, em bryo do na tion, or sur ro gacy—was ef fec tively broken when Iran’s lead ing Shia Mus lim ay a tol lah is sued a fatwa al low ing donor tech nol o gies to be used as a “mar riage sav ior.” By 2000, clin ics in Shia-dominant Iran and Leb a non had begun to offer third-party re pro duc tive as sis tance to their in fer tile pa tients. In 2003, I re lo cated my study to Leb a non, where I found bur geon ing de mand for donor tech nol o gies, es pe cially egg do na tion, among in fer tile Mus lim cou ples (In horn 2012). Not all of these cou ples were Shia Mus lims or Leb a nese. In deed, nu mer ous Syr ians, Pal es tin ians, and cou ples from other Mid dle East ern Mus lim coun tries were ar riv ing in Bei rut on se cret “IVF hol i days” to use IVF or ICSI with donor eggs. In ad di tion, in fer tile Leb a nese cou ples were flock ing back to Bei rut from the di as pora. Hav ing fled the coun try dur ing the fifteen-year (1975–90) Leb a nese civil war, they were “com ing home” to make their “test-tube ba bies” in a place of cul tural com fort. Hav ing ob served these Mid dle East ern “home com ings,” I de cided to re lo cate my study of as sisted re pro duc tion to a “send ing” com mu nity in the heart of Arab Amer ica. My field site was Dear born, Mich i gan, an eth...