# The Divine in the Clinic: Assisted Reproduction and Religious Practice in Ghana and South Africa

## TL;DR

This paper explores how spiritual practices accompany assisted reproduction in Ghana and South Africa, shaping moral identities and complementing medical interventions.

## Contribution

The study reveals how spiritual interventions are integrated into assisted reproduction, highlighting moral and cultural dimensions in clinical settings.

## Key findings

- Spiritual practices reinforce moral identities among clinic staff and patients.
- Sacred spaces and rituals are created to complement high-tech reproductive interventions.
- Cultural and religious adaptations of ARTs raise translation dilemmas in different contexts.

## Abstract

Drawing on studies with 40 informants in Ghana and 74 informants in South Africa, we explore spiritual interventions among staff and patients that accompany their use of assisted reproduction. These practices and expressions of faith reinforce staff and patients as moral subjects who have done everything possible to assist in the vagaries of assisted reproduction—another form of care to enable, complement, and enhance high-tech intervention. We consider the creation of sacred spaces in the clinics, the rituals that form part of IVF practice, and the dilemmas of translation when assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) travel to different cultural and religious contexts.