
The AMI Podcast Infertility, Technology, & Muslim Women in India | Dr Zairu Nisha | Research Seminar
In this Research Seminar, Dr Zairu Nisha (University of Delhi) explores infertility among Muslim women in India through feminist bioethics and phenomenology. She introduces the concept of the body as a site of moral injury, showing how reproductive expectations, religious belief, and assisted reproductive technologies shape women’s moral identities and lived experiences.Drawing on thinkers such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Simone de Beauvoir, Dr Nisha challenges mind–body dualism and argues that the body is not separate from the self, but a moral subject formed through relationships with others. When infertility disrupts social and religious expectations of womanhood and motherhood, women experience guilt, shame, and alienation — not because of moral failure, but because they are caught between conflicting moral worlds.
Read more or watch the full seminar:Audio Chapters:
0:00 - Introduction
2:40 - Self and Body Dichotomy
04:53 - The Lived-Body in a Lived World
07:35 - Embodiment and Moral Injury
12:27 - Female Body and Reproduction
15:30 - Infertility and Moral Problem
17:55 - Technology and Motherhood
22:24 - Muslim Women and Reproduction
25:26 - Conclusion: Towards Moral Repair
