Of milk-mothers and sacred bonds: Islam, patriarchy, and new reproductive technologies.

Science and technology have introduced new concepts and options to the whole world, including the Muslim world. Some momentous effects of technology include the linkages of previously isolated groups and communities, extension and qualitative change of life and health, and the potential for imminent and horrible human-inflicted death. Conservative and revivalist Islam have fought the effects of new technology at times, but also accommodated religiously based ideology to desired innovations. Examples abound and include the introduction of the telegraph and the telephone, the religious sanctions for family planning, and changes in the civil laws of personal status. Discussion on the potential for new reproductive technologies began some years ago, but relatively little information has accrued. The voices of Muslim women are conspicuously silent in the consideration of new reproductive technologies and their religious and social implications. Instead, the official Islamic perspectives on new reproductive technologies and the legal considerations 'they raise have been shaped by conservative male religious scholars and predominantly male medical authorities. That the conservative "Islamic" view of surrogate parenting and in vitro fertilization upholds the paramount value of legitimate fatherhood, the sanctity of the traditional nuclear family, and the traditionally defined social and economic goals of motherhood should not surprise us. But the message is not only due to its medium but also to the selectivity of its formulation. Muslim physicians and several conservative jurists have accepted the use of two forms of in vitro fertilization, manipulations of the legitimate (married) sperm and egg. The acceptance of this new technology in the mid 1980s1 does form a break with earlier castigations