Summary: The project aims to study the relationship between science and religion in Argentina from the Assisted Reproduction Techniques (ARTs) field. To this end, we explore the perspectives, practices, and processes of articulation of reproductive medicine and religion, attending to the trajectories of two main actors involved, experts and users of ART in Argentina.
The main research question we seek to answer is: How do religion and reproductive medicine articulate in the perspectives and practices of ART experts and users?
Contributing to the debates that propose focusing on the science and religion articulation and actors’ perspectives, the project explores two points of view on the reproductive process: a) Experts in the ART field, including health professionals beyond medicine (ART practitioners, fertility specialists, bioethicists, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers) and b) ARTs users on a diversity of treatments (artificial insemination, IVF, ICSI, ART treatment with egg and sperm donor).
In both cases, experts and users, participants will be selected to attend the diversity of religious identities in Argentina (Roman Catholicism, Evangelical Christianity, Islam, and new spiritualties). In addition, users’ intersectional position (class, race, generation, marital status, gender, and religion) is also relevant to explore the complexity of their identities and access to reproductive medicine in Argentina.
Within the interpretative paradigm of social sciences, this project is based on a qualitative methodology that combines interviews, documentary analysis, social network analysis, and observation.
As a result, the project seeks to understand the positions, trajectories, strategies, and tensions of different actors (experts and users) who interpret, negotiate, and propose specific articulations between science and beliefs in Argentina’s reproductive medicine field.
The research team for this proposal has been consolidated since 2018 and conducted the previous INSBS project, “Sciences and Catholicism”, in 2020-20211. In this new instance, the findings obtained will be revisited and deepened.
This project complies with the guidelines for ethical behaviour in the Social Sciences and Humanities of CONICET (Res. 2857/2006), the Declaration of Helsinki (Fortaleza 2013 version), the legislation, and Human Rights covenants in force in Argentina. Furthermore, it has a data management plan that protects the identity of the participants. All these items are integrated into the legal framework for safeguarding habeas data (Law 25326).
