Culture Religion and Infertility: A South African Perspective

¹ Dr Vishanthie Sewpaul, Department of Social Work, University of Natal, Durban 4041, South Africa. E-mail: sewpaul{at}mtb.und.ac.za Summary This paper contains data pertaining to cultural views on fertilityand infertility, and the use of traditional healing in infertility,from a sample of twenty-four case studies of infertile participantsand from twelve religious leaders representative of the faithsof the infertile participants. This is followed by a discussionon the impact of religion on the handling of infertility. Theunique differences between the Indian and African world viewscompared with those of Coloureds and Whites² are evident. However,the impact of religion on the handling of infertility reflectssimilarities across different religious groups. Within the variousthemes that emerged regarding religion and infertility, themost pervasive, across all religious faiths, was that infertilitywas seen as punishment for wrong-doing. The individual's levelof involvement with religion, their personal conception of God,and their sense of self in relation to God appeared to be importantfactors in influencing the impact of religion on the experienceof infertility.