Assisted Reproductive Technologies and Fertility “Tourism”: Examples from Global Dubai and the Ivy League

Abstract

What motivates the global movements of infertile people searching for assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs)? In this article, we attempt to answer this question by exploring infertile patients’ practices of so-called “fertility tourism.” Based on ethnographic research carried out with nearly 300 infertile travelers in two major ART centers—one in the global hub of the United Arab Emirates and the other at a major East Coast Ivy League university—we examine a diverse set of reasons for reproductive travel. We argue that reproductive “tourism” should be reconceptualized as reproductive “exile” in that infertile couples feel barred from accessing ARTs in their home countries. Listening to reproductive travel stories is key to understanding infertile couples’ transnational “quests for conception.” Stories of two couples, one from Lebanon and one from Italy, demonstrate the poignancy of these quests and begin to shed light on the complex calculus of factors governing this global movement of reproductive actors.

Keywords:

• assisted reproductive technology
• cross-border reproductive care
• fertility tourism
• Italy
• medical tourism
• Middle East
• United Arab Emirates

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors wish to thank Mikaela Rogozen-Soltar for her bibliographic assistance, and Jeannine Estrada for patient recruitment at the Yale Fertility Center. The research project upon which this paper is based, “Globalization and Reproductive Tourism in the Arab World,” was generously supported by the National Science Foundation (BCS-0549264) and the US Department of Education Fulbright-Hays Faculty Abroad Research Program (PI Marcia C. Inhorn).

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Notes on contributors

Marcia C. Inhorn

MARCIA C. INHORN is the William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs in the Department of Anthropology and The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University, where she has served as Chair of the Council on Middle East Studies. A specialist on Middle Eastern gender and health issues, Inhorn has conducted research on the social impact of infertility and assisted reproductive technologies in Egypt, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, and Arab America over the past 25 years, and is the author of four books on the subject. PANKAJ SHRIVASTAV is the director of the largest fertility unit in the United Arab Emirates, where he has been responsible for the introduction of many advanced techniques in assisted reproduction. Dr. Shrivastav is also interested in multicultural aspects of ART delivery and in cross-border reproductive care. PASQUALE PATRIZIO is Professor of Obstetrics/Gynecology and Director of the Yale University Fertility Center. He is the author of a textbook on assisted reproduction as well as many publications on ARTs, the risk of multiple pregnancy, fertility preservation in cancer, and cross-border reproductive care.