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- Chair:
-
Vladislav Serikov
(Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main)
- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- Eta room
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 6 September, -
Time zone: Europe/Vilnius
Short Abstract:
This open panel aims at investigating how religion copes with Assisted Reproductive Technology. Offspring is often referred to as a divine gift, as is infertility as a punishment. Consequently, religion usually does not favor human intervention in the conception of a child.
Long Abstract:
This open panel aims at investigating how religion copes with Assisted Reproductive Technology. Offspring is often referred to as a divine gift, as is infertility as a punishment; God can open and close wombs. Consequently, religion usually does not favor human intervention in the conception of a child; on the other hand, the ever-growing fertility problems (especially in wealthy societies) should push religious authorities to question their positions.
Furthermore, Assisted Reproductive Technology in some cases poses major ethical problems, as in the case of surrogacy for rich couples who pay women in financial hardship to be able to have children. How far can science go and how far can religion give its consent?
The panel welcomes contributions that address these issues in current societies but also contributions that explore case studies in past societies that show these issues existed even before the advent of technology.
Participant: Serikov Vladislav, "Inventing of surrogate mothers in South Asian religions"
The panel initially proposed by Giulia Pedrucci.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 6 September, 2023, -Paper short abstract:
In religion, 'DNA' is a symbolic resource, the new 'blood', highlighting the relationship between tradition and innovation. 'DNA' is also used to construe community, continuity, authority, authenticity, and macrohistories, a form of contact magic that combines appeals to science and to tradition.
Paper long abstract:
The discovery of the DNA structure seven decades ago ignited a biotechnological revolution, which traces back to Darwin's theory of evolution, which influenced religious reactions like creationism and intelligent design. Biologically, DNA refers to our shared yet unique genetic material, and connects us to a lineage that spans past and future. In religion, on the other hand, DNA has become the new 'blood'.
This paper scrutinizes the role of 'DNA' technology as an emerging symbolic and material resource in religious discourses and practices, highlighting the dynamic relationship between tradition and innovation. 'DNA' molds religious practices and beliefs in different ways, for example through innovative Christologies or DNA tests affirming prophetic lineages. Appeals to 'DNA' are now present in many otherwise traditional religious discourses, intertwined with old religious questions about community, identity, and origins, body, sex and family, man, god(s), and nature, magic and science, purity, authority and charisma, legacy and legitimacy, destiny and free will, and life and death.
Often, 'DNA' arguments are used in appeals to science, and overlap with appeals to tradition and charisma. It also represents a form of contact magic. Religious interaction with DNA illustrates that even the most abstract religious ideas have a material aspect, and vice versa. Furthermore, it is a reminder that religions involve macro mythologies, imagined communities, and can be seen as traditions — social, symbolic, and invented chains of memory.
Paper short abstract:
A very important function of religion is to make projections of desirable or ideal human qualities onto the sacred actors. South Asian religious narratives on the embryon transfer provide emic justification of Assisted Reproductive Technologies.
Paper long abstract:
My paper has a normative stance. The aim of the paper is to look how South Asian religious traditions might cope with Assisted Reproductive Technology, in particular with surrogacy.
I start with the factual statement that despite increasing use of Assisted Reproductive Technologies by religious subjects in South Asia, the general normative attitude of the religious authorities in South Asia (here I point out the Hindu, the Jain and the Buddhist traditions) are often reserved towards the Assisted Reproductive Technology.
I further look at one specific function of religion (method) and at some emic narratives through the prism of this function (application). As Ludwig Feuerbach pointed out almost 200 years ago, a very important function of religion is to make projections of desirable or ideal human qualities onto the sacred actors.
The paper suggests that the religious narratives on the embryon transfer in the South Asian traditions open a viable path for reasonable emic (internal religious) justification for Assisted Reproductive Technologies that could be appropriated by religious subjects coping with the use of ART.