Constrained contraceptive access among Haredi Jews and religious dimensions of reproductive governance

• In Event: 30658 - Reproductive Surveillance and Clinical Policing

Abstract

Among Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews in New York, contraceptive use is controlled both directly through religious laws and rabbinical gatekeeping, and indirectly through social norms and regulation of access to information. In this paper we present findings from an ethnographic study of marital, sexual, and reproductive self-determination among Haredi Jews; data collection consisted of in-depth (N=60) and key informant (N=29) interviews, participant observation, and analysis of media content. We describe a system of reproductive governance, including stringent control of the use of contraception, in which religious authorities idealize high fertility and rigid gender roles as a response to historical trauma and perceived marginalization. While some individuals consensually submit to this reproductive governance, some others – particularly women – experience it as coercive, contributing to undesired pregnancies, physical and financial hardship, confinement in unsatisfactory or abusive marriages, and even religious disaffection. The reproductive governance is not solely a product of Haredi institutions: some providers at publicly-funded healthcare facilities reportedly fail to meet clinical standards for care by refraining from broaching family planning with Haredi patients in a misguided gesture of “cultural competence”. This paper extends the concept of reproductive governance in three ways: 1) it highlights how knowledge and social scripts, in addition to codified laws and direct coercion, function as elements through which reproductive governance operates,; 2) it portrays how reproductive governance can be imposed by a religious institution alone, not in collaboration with the state and in fact in contradiction with local laws upholding reproductive autonomy; and 3) it reveals how stringent forms of governance that cause suffering can diminish the legitimacy of the governing institution and prompt both covert and overt acts of subversion.

Authors

• Alicia Jen, Columbia University

• Gloria Fortuna, Columbia University

• Jessie Ford, Columbia University

• Fraidy Reiss, Unchained At Last

• Jennifer S. Hirsch, Columbia University