Since the first IVF birth in 1990, the Iranian medical community has not only given full support to the use and development of assisted reproductive technology but has aided the emergence of a powerful, locally-trained body of medical practitioners and biomedical researchers. At the same time, from a religious point of view, most Shia legal authorities - differences of opinion notwithstanding - have taken a relatively permissive view and generally support assisted reproductive technology, including procedures that involve egg, sperm and embryo donation as well as surrogacy arrangements under certain conditions. An examination of the social, legal and ethical aspects of the development and implementation of these technologies in Iran is the subject of this book. It is based on a combination of extensive ethnographic research and textual analysis of important academic and religious seminary publications in Iran, from Shia jurisprudence (fiqh) and Persian histories to the analysis of laws and verdicts.

Dr. Shirin Naef is a Swiss-Iranian anthropologist at the University of Zurich. Her research focuses on Bioethics especially reproductive and genetic technologies, legal anthropology, material culture, kinship, religion, Shia jurisprudence and theology.