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Conceiving Agency: Reproductive Authority among Haredi Women explores the ways Haredi Jewish women make decisions about their reproductive lives. Although they must contend with interference from doctors, rabbis, and the Israeli government, Haredi women find space for-and insist on-autonomy from them when they make decisions regarding the use of contraceptives, prenatal testing, fetal ultrasounds, and other reproductive practices. Drawing on their experiences of pregnancy, knowledge of cultural norms of reproduction, and theological beliefs, Raucher shows that Haredi women assert that they are in the best position to make decisions about reproduction.
Conceiving Agency puts forward a new view of Haredi women acting in ways that challenge male authority and the structural hierarchies of their conservative religious tradition. Raucher asserts that Haredi women's reproductive agency is a demonstration of women's commitment to Haredi life and culture as well as an indication of how they define religious ethics.
Conceiving Agency: Reproductive Authority among Haredi Women explores the ways Haredi Jewish women make decisions about their reproductive lives. Although they must contend with interference from doctors, rabbis, and the Israeli government, Haredi women find space for-and insist on-autonomy from them when they make decisions regarding the use of contraceptives, prenatal testing, fetal ultrasounds, and other reproductive practices. Drawing on their experiences of pregnancy, knowledge of cultural norms of reproduction, and theological beliefs, Raucher shows that Haredi women assert that they are in the best position to make decisions about reproduction.
Conceiving Agency puts forward a new view of Haredi women acting in ways that challenge male authority and the structural hierarchies of their conservative religious tradition. Raucher asserts that Haredi women's reproductive agency is a demonstration of women's commitment to Haredi life and culture as well as an indication of how they define religious ethics.
Introduction
1. Medicine and Religion: Doctors and Rabbis in Israel
2. Books and Babies: Pathways to Authority
3. The Embodiment of Pregnancy
4. Reproductive Theology: Embodying Divine Authority
5. Abortions, Finances, and Women's Reproductive Authority
Conclusion: Haredi Women's Bodies and Beyond
Works Cited
Index
Michal Raucher is Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies and affiliate faculty in Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University.
Michal Raucher is part of a small but growing cohort of scholars
working in the field of religious ethics who challenge the former
practice of privileging "scriptural sources, religious doctrines
and law, and central forms of religious authority" (16) when
engaging in bioethical decision-making and formulating health
policies.In this precise and carefully researched study, with clear
writing making it available to readers of diverse backgrounds,
Raucher reveals how she has come to understand how Haredi women in
Israel (unfortunately she does not specify which community), who
typically have large families, make their reproductive decisions in
a number of contexts.
*AJS Review*
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