Table Of ContentExtractions
Global Ethics Series
Series Editor: Christien van den Anker, Reader, Department of Politics, University of the
West of England, UK
Global Ethics as a field builds on longer traditions of ethical reflection about (global) society
and discusses ethical approaches to global issues. These include but are not limited to issues
highlighted by the process of globalization (in the widest sense) and increasing multicultur-
alism. They also engage with migration, the environment, poverty and inequality, peace and
conflict, human rights, global citizenship, social movements and global governance. Despite
fluid boundaries between fields, Global Ethics can be clearly marked out by its multidisci-
plinary approach, its interest in a strong link between theory, policy and practice and its
inclusion of a range of work from strictly normative to more empirical.
Books in the series provide a specific normative approach, taxonomy or an ethical position
on a specific issue in Global Ethics through empirical work. They explicitly engage with
Global Ethics as a field and position themselves in regard to existing debates even when
outlining more local approaches or issues. The Global Ethics Series has been designed to reach
beyond a liberal cosmopolitan agenda and engage with contextualism as well as structural
analyses of injustice in current global politics and its disciplining discourses.
Titles include:
Carlos R. Cordourier-Real
TRANSNATIONAL SOCIAL JUSTICE
Anna Grear
REDIRECTING HUMAN RIGHTS
Facing the Challenge of Corporate Legal Humanity
Shahram Khosravi
‘ILLEGAL’ TRAVELLER
An Auto- Ethnography of Borders
Ivan Manokha (editor)
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF HUMAN RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT
Darrel Moellendorf
GLOBAL INEQUALITY MATTERS
Michal Rachel Nahman
EXTRACTIONS
An Ethnography of Reproductive Tourism
Derrick M. Nault and Shawn L. England (editors)
GLOBALIZATION AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD
Christien van den Anker and Ilse van Liempt (editors)
HUMAN RIGHTS AND MIGRATION
Trafficking for Forced Labour
Global Ethics Series
Series Standing Order ISBN 978–0–230–01958–4
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Extractions
An Ethnography of Reproductive Tourism
Michal Rachel Nahman
Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Criminology,
University of the West of England
© Michal Rachel Nahman 2013
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 ISBN 978-0-230-31929-5
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2013 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-33987-7 ISBN 978-1-137-29175-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137291752
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the
country of origin.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13
For Ima, Abba and Lilach
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Contents
List of Figures viii
Acknowledgements ix
List of Abbreviations xi
Glossary xii
1 Extractions 1
2 TheoristSellers 27
3 EmbryoMethod 56
4 Repro-Migrants 84
5 Borders 128
6 ExplosionCrisis 164
7 Synecdoche 183
Notes 192
References 206
Index 220
vii
Figures
1.1 Map of Israel with baby and family 2
2.1 Surgery-r oom bed, monitor and aspirator, Bucharest clinic 28
2.2 Piat¸a Unirii, Bucharest 36
2.3 ‘TRUST ME BABY’, Bucharest clinic 46
2.4 ‘WAIT BABY WAIT’, Bucharest clinic 47
3.1 Graffiti outside an IVF clinic in Israel 58
3.2 ‘Embryos are our baby’ 67
3.3 ‘Preferred External Features’ form 76
4.1 Egg in lock 102
5.1 Microscope 150
5.2 Micromanipulator 151
5.3 Assisted Zona Hatching (AZH) 151
5.4 Intra-cytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) 152
7.1 Ha- Mifletset, ‘The Monster’ 189
viii
Acknowledgements
How to thank all the people who supported, inspired and contributed
towards my writing this book? There are many gaps and absences for
which I apologize in advance.
The W enner-G ren Foundation for Anthropological Research and the
Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada made the
project financially viable. I could not have completed the manuscript
without the support of a University of West England Research Leave
Fellowship and benefited greatly from my Visiting Senior Fellowship at
that time (September 2010 to September 2011) at the BIOS Centre at the
London School of Economics and Political Science. Participation in the
BIOS Roundtable and a conference on reproduction and kinship there
enriched my writing.
This book has also benefited from all of the feedback and reviews that
I have received in the process of publishing journal articles and book
chapters elsewhere. Parts of these are reprinted here with permission.
These are: (2006) ‘Materialising Israeliness: difference and mixture in
transnational ova donation’, Science as Culture, 15, 3: 199–213; (2007)
‘Synecdochic ricochets: biosocialities in a Jerusalem IVF clinic’, in
S. Gibbon and C. Novas (eds), Biosociality, Genetics and the Social Sciences:
Making Biologies and Identities (London: Routledge), pp. 117–35; (2008)
‘Nodes of desire: transnational egg sellers as theorists of reproduction
in a neo- liberal age’, European Journal of Women’s Studies, 15, 2: 65–82;
(2010) ‘“Embryos are our baby”: abridging hope, body and nation in
transnational ova donation’, in J. Edwards, P. Harvey and P. Wade (eds),
Technologized Images, Technologized Bodies: Anthropological Approaches
to a New Politics of Vision (Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books),
pp. 185–210; (2011) ‘Reverse traffic: intersecting inequalities in human
egg donation’, Reproductive Biomedicine Online, 23, 5: 626–33.
To the people in Israel and Romania who took the time – at one of
the most intense times in personal and national terms – to talk to me
with such depth and openness about egg donation and life in Israel and
Romania, I am extremely thankful. Ofra Balaban was the best p rimary
informant an anthropologist could want. I’m not sure that she would
agree with everything that I have written here, but I gained many
valuable insights from her. I learned much about ethics and reproduc-
tion in Israel from Carmel Shalev, Meira Weiss and Tsviya Birman. The
ix
