1. The Middle Class
1.1. Show greatest financial concerns – may try only once, or become financially devastated if try several times
1.1.1. "EXORBITANT EXPENSE"= HAVING ENOUGH MONEY TO CONDUCT TREATMENT MULTIPLE TIMES IS #1 CONSTRAINT
1.2. Often highly educated professionals (e.g. engineers, nurses, doctors) but typically their salaries are relatively low $100 per month
1.2.1. Egyptian salary is about $88 a month VS. US which is about $1,892 a month
1.3. Cash-generating strategies among middle-class patients attempting a trial of IVF or ICSI
1.3.1. often involves drawing upon savings, selling jewelry and other valuables, and borrowing from relatives
1.4. Those who can afford IVF/ICSI was because of money earned through labor migration to the Arab Gulf states
1.4.1. No labor migration= No money for IVF
1.4.1.1. Force to migrate outside the country in order to obtain the means
1.5. Financial burdens of treatments were the logistical pressures of being able to complete and IVF/ICSI trial in "RECORD TIME"
1.5.1. Have to prepare themselves in advance for IVF “vacations” – length of time for procedure extends over 1-2 months of annual vacation
1.5.1.1. IVF more professional and advanced in Egypt, less costly, and logistics of travel
2. The Lower Class
2.1. Unprivileged and dis-empowered
2.2. By 1999 33% fell below the poverty line/ half of Egypt's population lives in dire poverty
2.3. Procedures and Drugs are absolutely unaffordable = economic exclusions
2.4. Others attend IVF centers only to undergo "artificial insemination"= less expensive/less invasive
2.4.1. Others undergo "one trail", having to sell everything they own (jewelry, household goods, small pieces of land) or borrow substantial sums from better-off relatives
2.5. Poor couples that are taken as charity cases = rare cases have elicited sympathy, taken on as gratis patients/charged minimal fee
2.6. thinly veiled neo-eugenics – the poor cannot and should not use NRT usury forbidden by Islam
2.6.1. If u cant afford these NRT = certainly cannot afford children. "POOR WOMEN DO NOT DESERVE TO BE MOTHERS, ESPECIALLY NOT OF TEST-TUBE BABIES
3. Conclusion
3.1. Thus, test-tube baby making in Egpyt is an exclsive and exclusionary business, serving to prevent many test-tube babies from every being made.
3.2. Egypt serves as an example par excellence of the limits on reproductive agency posted by class structures in a truly class-stratified, resource-poor, Third World society
3.3. As IVF becomes more and more expensive, it will not be widespread, it is limited to a few, mostly the affluent
3.4. THE BIGGEST PROBLEM WITH IVF IS ECONOMIC!!!!
3.5. Uses the case study of Mikhail (48) and Georgette (36), wealthy Coptic Christian merchants to show how couples bend back wards in determination to collect sufficient resources to finance fee-for-service NRT in their goal of producing heirs to family business
4. The Upper Class Elites
4.1. Their financial resources allows couples to undertake multiple IVF/ ICSI trials in Egypt ($3,000 p/t until age begins to work against them
4.1.1. 1% of Egyptian society as whole represents wealth
4.2. Access to consume global NRT in the form of "Western-generated medical technologies, purchased from internationally sophisticated Egyptian doctors
4.2.1. Test-tube baby making will remain the province of "WORTHIER ELITES", are deemed better potential contributors to future Egyptian society
4.3. Elite women were 62% of those trying to become Egyptian mothers of test-tube babies
4.3.1. The rich are significantly "overrepresented in Egyptian IVF centers
4.3.1.1. Have financial means to participate in the world of test-tube baby making, both in and outside Egypt.
4.4. Highly educated, professional, need for heir
4.4.1. "Motherhood is culturally compulsory"
4.5. They can sustain repeated trails of treatments and surgeries
4.5.1. unlimited access to rich resources, private affairs
4.5.1.1. Many had attempted in foreign countries, but prefer Egyptian Muslim doctors and clinics
5. The Enactment of Stratified Reproduction
5.1. For the wealthy, money is NOT the main object of pursuing these "costly therapies"
5.1.1. Concerns revolves around the costs of "FAILURE"
5.1.2. Inability to "SECURE" heirs to whom they pass down their accumulated patrimony
5.2. For the poor and middle-class, MONEY IS EVERYTHING
5.2.1. Absolutely barred from pursuing any treatment
5.3. Social class and its relationship to ECONOMIC RESOURCES/ POWER = fundamental arena of "CONSTRAINT"
5.3.1. NRTs benefit "only a small portion of infertile women"
6. The Public-Private Divide
6.1. development of NRT in Egypt (Middle-East) as a primarily private medical resource (33 of 35 centers in 1996)= GROWN EXPONENTIALLY
6.1.1. Manufactures in Western countries
6.2. Israel (NON MUSLIM COUNTRY) where RT is publicly funded and virtually free for all citizens
6.2.1. No restrictions to class, religion, economic
6.2.2. 23 public IVF/ NRT clinics= state's pronatalist desire to "reproduce JEWS"