Inhorn's Analysis

Menstruation is also another form in which women are ‘Polluting’. Within Catholicism, women are still unable to be ordained. Women’s presence may also distract men from their more important roles involving worship. Turner points out that in order to carry out priestly duties properly there must be a degree of policing the body and the presence of a woman there makes it more difficult. This demonstrates that religion gives a negative image of women.

Who should be responsible for stopping the 120 million sperm that are released during a male orgasm from fertilizing a female’s egg? The context of that question has been a societal debate in terms of the consequences of unplanned pregnancy and whether it is a female, male or both sexes responsibility to practice “safe sex”. Introducing the birth control pill for women in the 1960s created a huge controversy between sexual conservatives and the women who would benefit from the pill, but the responsibility still remained in the hands of women. However, as medicine has advanced and the possibility of a male birth control pill has amounted, many wonder if the same issues would arise if a male birth control pill did in fact become

The procreative-choice movement has strived for years to provide women with legal and safe access to abortion, they believe that “a woman can never be equal if she is denied the basic right to make decisions for herself” (NARAL, 2017). In Coleman and Nelson’s Abortion Attitudes Survey, it revealed that the higher the ratings indicates a more procreative-life stance and the more one values the male’s involvement in the decision to abort. Lower ratings on this survey are linked to a procreative-choice stance, correlated with less involvement of the man (1999). The procreative-life viewpoint is often correlated with a religious affiliation, in the Catholic religion abortion is seen as as immoral, which will be argued later. In this religion, the parents of the child are usually married so the father is more involved and his opinion matters moreso in this situation, though it is perceived to still be the woman’s decision. The procreative-choice stance argues that it is the female’s body, the female’s choice, so men are rarely involved. Even though the procreative organizations say the man should not be involved, it is crucial for the psychological and financial aspects for both the woman and the man. Consequently, women and men will have to negotiate to accommodate the men having a say in the abortion

The modern world is in the midst of reconstructing gender roles; debates about contraception, reproductive freedom, and female inequality are contentious and common. The majority now challenges the long established assertion that women’s bodies are the eminent domain of patriarchal control. In the past, a woman’s inability to control her reproductive choices could come with ruinous consequences. Proponents of patriarchal control argue against reproductive independence with rhetoric from religious texts and with anecdotes of ‘better days,’ when women were subservient. Often, literature about childbearing fails to acknowledge the possibility of women being uninterested in fulfilling the role of motherhood.

Anthropologist Emily Martins book” “The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction” is an ethnographic study of male-oriented metaphors for women 's reproductive processes and women 's real thoughts about those processes through interviews.

The Christian religion implements the use of scripture as the highest command for the way in which sexual ethics is implemented. Christian teaching explores several issues in light of sexuality such as extra-marital and pre-marital sex, homosexuality and pro-creation and I will write about these in this essay.

“…he’s said a forbidden word. Sterile. There is no such thing as a sterile man, not officially,” (61). Her words give great depth to how focused the society is on procreation, and how much significance they place the ability to

There is no such thing as a sterile man, not officially” (61). Her words show how much their society focuses on a man’s ability to reproduce. Should a man no longer have the ability to reproduce, he loses one aspect that gives him power in the

Herein lies the root cause of the cultural trends witnessed today; solitary sex, or masturbation, was secluded to secrecy among those who practiced it. Talking about masturbation was forbidden and the only ones allowed to discuss it were the doctors, scientists, and philosophers who shaped the negative view of masturbation in the culture of that time. It is rather amazing that this mindset of privacy and secrecy have carried over to the modern

To further illustrate how access to reproductive technologies challenge traditional notions of kinship, I will be discussing the article by Pande, Amrita, “Transnational Commercial Surrogacy in India: Gifts for Global Sisters?” This article discusses the ethnography of transnational commercial surrogacy in India, and the new phenomenon of reproductive travel. The notion of surrogacy in India is that the surrogate is made to believe that she is providing a gift and that they should not do this for economic benefits. “Surrogate Gauri states: “I pray to Sai Baba (a spiritual Guru) – I have lots of faith in him. I know this is his gift to a poor mother” (Pande, 2011, p. 621). She sees this as an opportunity to give individuals who fertility issue a gift from God and that she believes to be

In today’s time, new ways have been developed to make individuals lives effortless and more efficient. A child being conceived through sperm donation is one of the many ways life has been made easier. Sperm donors have always been in high demand, because there is and still are many single women, couples (lesbians, heterosexuals), and different cases of individuals who are not able to conceive a child. The argument has always been over the sperm donor's anonymity, and what knowledge the child or receiver should be provided. The man who volunteers to donate his sperm signs a contract that assures him, from both sides (the recipient, and the sperm bank), that his identity will remain anonymous. Additionally, the sperm donor may be the biological father, but is not really the father to child, seeing as though they

primitive societies, fertility is deliberately restrained by means of abortion, infanticide and long-term sexual abstinence. He argued that such reproductive restraint

When an illness is becoming medicalized it can appear to be fueled by three factors; influence of the medical profession, social movements, and directed organizational activity (Conrad, 3-4). Medicalization can be useful in giving knowledge to individuals dealing with an unknown predicament, but sometimes, like the case in CAH, it can be questioned to if a medicalized stance on an illness is necessary. A key example of medicalization of a physical condition that aligns with the genital concerns of CAH would be male impotence. This condition, like ambiguous genitals, does not have a negative impact on the physical health of the individual at all, but a drug, Viagra, has been administered to men anyway (Conrad, 6). The side effects of Viagra range from the minute stuffy nose to very serious concerns such as memory problems and loss of hearing. Despite these risks, men continue to take the medication because of the aesthetic around being able to perform in the bedroom. This can be translated into the prenatal usage of

The movement of Purity balls is a very interesting and prevalent movement in our society. Many women choose abstinence at a very young age. This choice is made with the encouragement of their fathers. Throughout this essay I will examine religion, as an institution, that governs women’s bodies and sexuality. I will first, describe my opinions on purity balls, secondly, analyze the patriarchal dominance between a father and his daughters, and finally look at some of the redeeming aspects and the consequences of limited knowledge of sexual education.

With the statistic of AIDS medicine being presently more reliable than infertility treatment (Rapp, 2006), it is clear that fertility doctors are under huge amounts of pressure. Thus, though patients are the main group of people that one considers when thinking about the emotional effects ART, it is important to note there are doctors who also use religious ideas to cope with the uncertainty of ART. 
Many fertility doctors in India display religious iconography around their clinics, and often name their clinics after the names of goddesses of fertility. Similarly to Kahn’s ethnography, the Hindu doctors and patients both understand that although they must exert their maximum effort in order for the procedure (IVF in this case) to succeed, it is essentially down to a ‘higher court of appeal’ (Bharadwaj, 2006, page 456) to decide whether the IVF treatment will be successful. 
Bharadwaj uses the example of Dr. Sachin, who, whilst being a highly accredited clinician, attributes all his success to cosmic forces. Though he recognises that ART is highly scientific, he also believes that there is a strong religious force which affects the outcome of his patient’s treatment. Dr. Sachin tells an anecdote of a woman he treated which he believed strongly contradicted Western science. Western medicine declares that if a woman’s endometrium is less than eight millimetres, birth is impossible. Yet, Dr. Sachin witnessed a woman give birth when her endometrium was just six millimetres.