Infertility: ‘Egg and sperm donorship not Islamic’

Senior lecturer at the University of Ilorin (UNILORIN), Dr Muhammad Kamaldeen, has advised infertile couples against alternative parentage, urging them to seek medical help.

Kamaldeen, who gave the advice in an online Ramadan lecture on Wednesday in Ilorin, spoke on alternative parentage and its prohibitions.

According to him, couples should seek for medical treatment and never think of alternative parentage such as surrogacy, egg and sperm donorship as it is not allowed in Islam.

He said the Shari’a affirmed the importance of marriage, family, and procreation, so treatment of an infertile couple was encouraged because it made procreation possible.

Kamaldeen said: “The Islamic Fiqh Council, after reviewing all the research submitted on invitro fertilisation and after consulting experts in the field, concluded that five forms of in vitro fertilisation are prohibited, while two are allowed

“The five procedures that are completely illegal are egg donorship, sperm donorship, Gestational Surrogacy, Egg and sperm donorship and Co-Wives Surrogacy, because they result in confusion,” he said.

The scholar said that the procedures were like adultery (Zina) since the surrogate mother would carry the fertilised egg of someone else, who was not her legal husband.

“It is a violation of fidelity, as it changes the biological relationship between parents and offspring, and threatens the integrity of lineage or kinship.

The child produced therefore has no lineage through legal marriage and will have to be considered as illegitimate.

“Therefore, if the product is haram, the means of acquiring the product (the surrogate’s renting of her womb) is also haram. There is an overwhelmingly high probability for emotional and legal confrontation between the two mothers.

The most compelling evidence of this position in the Qur’an is Chapter 58 vs 2 where it is stated that: ‘…their mothers are only those who conceived them and gave birth to them.”

Kamaldeen said that in the relationship between a husband and wife there was no room for third party, no matter who he or she might be; not for renting a womb or for donating sperm or donating eggs.

He said that the entire surrogate procedure amounted to dehumanising the process of human procreation by reducing the womb to the level of a commodity that could be bought or rented as a service.

Source