This interesting link appeared in my X account a few hours ago.
I never heard of anything like this so I had to make a search. What I discovered was somewhat surprising. For starters, this 2014 Ha'aretz series speaks of IVF in Israel. The article is quite long and includes a 13-minute audio version, but this clip told me what I was looking for.
Doing Fertility Treatments in Israel: Pros and Cons
IVF is cheaper in Israel than in the west, but 'fertility tourists' should prepare for differences in culture. Part 1 of Fertile Ground, a special Haaretz series on IVF in Israel.
There are cheaper options than Israel around the world, notably in eastern Europe and Asia. But among Israel’s advantages are its developed-country status with all the conveniences that entails, its advanced medical facilities, and for Jews at least, the comforting sense of being home with the tribe.
For Israeli couples, Israel provides free IVF for the first two children up to age 45 and at the discretion of the medical team and insurance, which has helped make the country a major world hub for the procedure.
There is no central source of information for pursuing IVF in Israel. Nor are there official estimates of how many women come to Israel for IVF. Some come in a private capacity and some are Israelis living abroad who are taking advantage of their right to free IVF under Israel’s universal healthcare laws. New immigrants and returning immigrants who have not kept up with health insurance payments must undergo a waiting period of 150 days even if they redeem their health insurance in a lump sum (the mandatory waiting period applies to both IVF and organ donation).
Next, this interesting essay appears in the 2018 spring issue of The Yale Review of International Studies. The article is quite long and had scads of footnotes, but this opening paragraph has the backstory. (Footnotes at the link. My emphasis in italics.)
The 1948 war culminating in Israeli independence and subsequent Jewish immigration law transformed Herzl’s dream of a majority-Jewish state into a reality. In November 1947, 45% of the population living on Jewish land (as defined by the United Nations) was Palestinian; by 1951 this percentage had fallen to 11%[5] due to the emigration of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees. David Ben-Gurion, the first Israeli Prime Minister, obsessed over Jewish demographic superiority in his new nation: he wrote in his autobiography, “For the survival and security of the State of Israel, a higher birthrate and increased immigration are essential”,[6] and he “likened Jewish women with less than four children to draftees who evade military service.”[7] However, because Israel was founded as a dual Jewish and democratic state, Ben-Gurion could not advocate for pro-natal laws that explicitly advantaged Jews over Arab non-Jews. Instead, preferring that such overt natal favoritism remain in the realm of non-profit organizations such as the wealthy and influential Jewish Agency,[8] he set a precedent of crafting legislation that introduced a Jewish population preference indirectly. The 1950 Law of Return, a cornerstone of Israeli legislation, asserted, “Every Jew has the right to immigrate to Israel.”[9] The law leniently defined “Jew”: non-Jewish spouses of Jews, their children, and their grandchildren were permitted to immigrate under the law[10] in order to encourage additional immigration of Jewish allies. The right to immigration was not extended to Arabs, and as a result of numerous waves of Jewish aliyot from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, millions of immigrant Jews padded the Jewish demographic advantage in their new state.[11] Importantly, however, Ben-Gurion’s original vision for the Jewish State did not include such extensive non-Ashkenazi immigration; indeed, when the full extent of the Holocaust’s destruction was revealed, Ben-Gurion exclaimed, “The extermination of the European Jewry is a catastrophe for Zionism. There won’t be anyone left to build the country!”[12] The decimation of the European Ashkenazim required full-scale efforts to import Eastern Mizrachim and Charedim—second-choice Jews who often did not conform to European Zionist ideals—to ensure a Jewish “critical mass”[13] in Palestine
This interesting link appears in Reproductive Health Matters, An international journal on sexual and reproductive health and rights. (Volume 16, Issue 31, 2008)
In Vitro Fertilisation Policy in Israel and Women’s Perspectives: The More the Better?
by Daphna Birenbaum-Carmeli &Martha Dirnfeld
Abstract
Israel offers nearly full funding for in vitro fertilisation (IVF) to any Israeli woman irrespective of her marital status or sexual orientation, until she has two children with her current partner. Consequently, Israeli women are the world’s most intensive consumers of IVF. This 2006 study explored the perceptions of Israeli IVF patients about the treatment and their experiences, probing possible links between state policy and women’s choices and health. Israeli women (n=137), all currently undergoing IVF, were invited to fill out questionnaires. The questionnaires were delivered in five IVF centres by university nursing students or by the clinics’ nurses. Most women were optimistic they would become pregnant, and described the treatment as having modest or no negative effects on their lives. They expressed a sweeping commitment to IVF, which they were willing to repeat “as many times as needed”. At the same time, the majority appeared to have very partial treatment-related knowledge and marginalised side effects, even though they had experienced some themselves. We interpret the observed favourable image of IVF as closely related to the encouragement implied in the extensive state funding of IVF and in the Jewish Israeli tradition of pronatalism, which may account for the virtual absence of critical public debate on the subject.
I have not drilled into these links or studied them closely, but these are just notes being blogged here for future reference. This is a subject that I started thinking about over eight years ago when I got interested in Yemen during the so-called Arab Spring. At the time Yemen was not on most people's radar but I found the place to be an enchanting study in history and cultural complexity. I blogged about it many times but this post eight years ago, The Jews of Yemen, is one of my favorites.
Go to the link and read what I had discovered at that time.
No comments:
Post a Comment