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Cosmopolitan Conceptions? IVF Sojourns in Global Dubai
Abstract
Dubai is an emerging global city and a new medical tourism hub. In the 21st century, thousands of infertile couples are traveling from parts of Africa, Asia, Euro-America, and the Middle East to Dubai in desperate quests for conception. These reproductive travelers are often fleeing home countries where IVF services are absent, inaccessible, illegal, or harmful. As an emerging global “reprohub,” Dubai sits squarely in the center of a “reproscape”—a world of assisted reproduction in motion—characterized by new “reproflows” of actors, technologies, and body parts. This paper explores the reproductive travel of 125 infertile couples from 50 different nations of origin who are seeking assisted conception in Dubai’s in vitro fertilization (IVF) sector. Conceive, the “medically cosmopolitan” clinic featured in this study, attempts to delivers high-quality, patient-centered IVF across national, ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural boundaries to its many incoming “reprotravelers.” Yet, cosmopolitan clinics such as Conceive are rare within the Emirates and the Middle East at large. Patients often lament the fact that medically and culturally competent care is lacking in the UAE, as well as in countries “back home.” Furthermore, access to a full range of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) is seriously challenged by the UAE’s recent Federal Law No. 11, which can be considered one of the most draconian ART laws in the world. The new law, coupled with preferential treatment for Emiratis in the government’s only publically funded IVF clinic, means that reprotravelers to Dubai face high costs, catastrophic expenditures, and legally imposed religious bans on donor eggs, sperm, embryos, surrogacy, and selective abortion of excess IVF fetuses. These legal bans force some infertile couples to become “reproductive outlaws,” moving betwixt and between the UAE and countries such as India and Lebanon, in order to procure the reproductive services they need. Despite the new law, preimplantation genetic diagnosis to screen IVF embryos for genetic diseases and sex (i.e., male or female) is legally permissible in the UAE, leading to new forms of travel for sex selection, particularly to ensure the birth of sons. These paradoxes and complexities serve as a cautionary tale, challenging the oft-cited term “reproductive tourism” as the most appropriate descriptor for IVF-related travel. Increasing reproductive mobility to places like Dubai bespeaks the need for new forms of 21st-century activism, not only to ensure basic reproductive rights, but to prevent reproductive illegality and discrimination.
Discipline
Anthropology
Geographic Area
UAE
Sub Area
Gulf Studies