Wombs for Rent

Re: Wombs for Rent

wife can be replaced, granted - how many second marriages do you know in your life time?
i know probably one ok two.

we can't take the Pakistan & Pakistani's on the same level with westerns. total difference in term of culture, openness, readily availability of medical treatment & most importantly treatments are not a taboo subject here. But in Pak it still is. most of the unfertilized women in Pakistan are diagnosed with PCO's .. but poor women don't even go to doc coz of "sharram o haya" .. 90% of pregnancy problems can be cured with just medicine... .but .. well T.I.P (this is pakistan - remember you read it here first :D)

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Let's discuss here again... Refresh us again.

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According to this the issue is the sperm, but if it’s a fertilized egg it’s an embryo, not sperm and egg anymore.

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This is technically the same thing as an IVF...only difference being that an unrelated person is carrying the child!

We were told that any intervention that involved using the body of a third person, be it an egg donor, sperm donor, or gestational carrier was not permissible. IVF (which is what he ended up going through, successfully alhamdullilah!), was allowed as ilong as it only involved the bodies of the married couple. Being the paranoid person that I am, I would forever be worried that the surrogate mother would grow attached to the baby she was carrying, and not want to give it up. So religious advice aside, we never considered the surrogacy option. I'm not one to judge anyone else's choice in this matter, be they Muslim or Non Muslim, as I know all to well the desperation one faces when they are battling infertility...it's just not something that my husband and I were comfortable with.

Re: Wombs for Rent

here is something authentic …

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Caution: It’s a video of Ahamadi/Qadayani scholor, but indeed a great answer:

watch it after 1:50

](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKz6Lx1ftuI)

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"The other wife in whose womb the embryo from the egg of the first wife is implanted may become pregnant with a second child before the embryo becomes established in her womb, as the result of relations with her husband around the time of the implanting of the embryo…"
**
i highly doubt this would ever be an issue as most surrogates tend to be lower income women who do it for the money, and i read somewhere that they live in a controlled environment, i.e. not at home but in a setting where they can be looked after properly in terms of mental and physical health, and where, i’m assuming, relations would be controlled. as well, the chances of becoming pregnant whilst already pregnant are very slim- it could only biologically occur if she had two uteruses which most women do not. and if she does, genetic testing would sort out the biological child from the surrogate-carried child pretty easily.
** i don’t believe dna testing was available in 1986 as widely as it is now and so i think the mullah’s need to revisit this issue.

my bigger concern would be with the cases i’ve read up on where careless doctors implant incorrect embryos in surrogate women, only for the biological parents to later find out that the child does not belong to them at all. or for their sperm/egg to be combined with someone else’s entirely and implanted so the child would only biologically belong to one of the parents. i’ve read about both cases happening in clinics in india.

the issue came to light both times when dna testing was required to prove the children’s parentage to allow them travel documents to fly back to their home countries with the parents. in the case of the unrelated children- boy and girl twins- the parents were distraught to find out the babies were not theirs after all, and abandoned both; the two children were likely sent to an orphanage. in the case of the baby belonging only to one parent, the canadian couple was unable to get a passport to take one of the babies home and was stuck in india at the mercy of the canadian and indian consulates and their procedures and paperwork. its horrific either way.

here is the article: Breaking News - Headlines & Top Stories | The Star

Re: Wombs for Rent

Great debate here.
Is surrogacy against Islam ? Some people think so. Because they lump all kind of surrogacies.
I think gestational surrogacy will not be against Islam:
In a gestational surrogacy, the surrogate mother is not genetically related to the child. Eggs are extracted from the intended mother or egg donor and mixed with sperm from the intended father or sperm donor in vitro. The embryos are then transferred into the surrogate’s uterus. Embryos which are not transferred may be frozen and used for transfer at a later time if the first transfer does not result in pregnancy. There no illegal sexual contact and then both mother and father are legally married.

We find an example of surrogacy in Islam in which a baby is nursed by a woman other than biological mother. That relationship becomes as sacred as with biological mother to the extant that nikah is prohibited between biological and surrogate child of this woman. Our Holy Prophet (SAW) was nursed by surrogate mother Thueiba and then Halima.
I know, I know it is different but how different ? That is what I am trying to understand.

The whole idea behind raza’at is to provide a healthy nurturing home to a baby who might not otherwise have/get it for one reason or the other.
In case of gestational surrogacy we are providing a healthy nurturing womb for a baby which starts in a test tube but will die if a healthy and nurturing womb is not available to this baby. Once the egg of a mother has been fertilized using the sperm of the papa then nothing else is needed for this baby from the surrogate mother or father as for establishing the genetic makeup of the baby. The genetic makeup of the baby has been established already. This baby now needs a warm womb and nutrients from this womb to grow. So the mechanics are different but the concept is same as raza’at . These nutrients from the surrogate mother do not alter the genetics of this baby. Once the surrogate mother has been impregnated with this embryo the conjugal relationship of this surrogate couple will not alter this embryo in any way.

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^Exactly. Having wetnurses was not unIslamic. What's the difference here?

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I don't object, but my reason for not choosing surrogacy would be that there are millions and millions of orphans in extremely unfortunate conditions. Islamically and for greater social good, it'd be more rewarding to adopt an orphan child give him/her a better life then spending big bucks to create new one.

Given the social-economical condition of Muslim countries, I won't mind if scholars take more pro-adoption stance than encouraging surrogacy, it'll cure few evils in the society.

But thats a very moralistic take which is not everyone's cup of tea and often rubs people in a wrong way. So I hope I didn't offend anyone here. lol

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^Sure, but as you said, that doesn't make surrogacy haram. Plus plenty of scholars discourage adoption too.

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It seems like this is not right practice according to Islamic values. Am I right or wrong? :konfused: Its better to adopt.

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If you are giving your own milk to another child which makes it mehram than adoption can be fine.

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So if giving milk makes one mehram, isn't surrogacy analogous?

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Yes^

Adoption: the child isn't biologically yours. You feed the child your milk. Mehram issues are taken care of.
Surrogacy: the child is biologically yours. You feed the child your milk. Mehram issues are taken care of.

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^No meant for the surrogate mother. The child isn't hers, but like with the wetnurse, doesn't it become mehram due to her nourishing it from her own body?

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I guess so.

The only difference is that unlike a designated wetnurse, you don't establish or keep contact with the surrogate mother...which brings me to my original question in my first post...being a mother myself, I cannot imagine how I would feel giving away a child that I have carried and delivered for the purpose of money. I see what Reha is saying...some people feel joy in helping others, and perhaps the needs of these women are far greater than the potential bond that could develop during the pregnancy...it's hard for me to understand.

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^I guess you could keep contact with the surrogate.

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This one friend I know who's gone through this process tells me that the surrogate came from her village to earn money...a substantial amount I must say. Her contract does not permit her to keep in touch with the child as there could be emotional issues down the road. So after the baby is delivered and discharged from the hospital, the child goes home with the biological parents and the surrogate goes back to her village until she wants to go through this process some other time if needed.

The clinics that provide this service recruit surrogates that must be 1. in good health and 2. have had children of their own before as research shows that women with their own kids can handle the emotionalities of "giving away" a child better than first timers. Most of these women come from villages with the pretext of going to the city to find a job, then return 9-10 months later with a substantial income. They live in the hostels provided by the clinics and are taken care of there.