Medical Issues: Is Surrogacy Between Co-Wives Permissible — and Who Is the Mother in Islamic Law?

Practical Laws of Islam as per the teachings of Imam Khamenei

Medical Issues: Is Surrogacy Between Co-Wives Permissible — and Who Is the Mother in Islamic Law?

English:

Question #1268:

1) Can a married woman, who has passed the age of ovulation due to menopause or the like, get pregnant with and be the surrogate mother of a fertilised egg of a second wife of her husband? Would the ruling be different if she or the second wife, whose egg was fertilised, is a permanent wife or a temporary one?

2) Who will be the mother of the child, the person who donates the egg or the one who gets pregnant with it?

3) Is the procedure permissible if the other’s egg is needed because the egg of the wife is so weak that it is feared that the born child would be deformed had it been fertilised with the husband’s sperm?

Answer #1268:

1) There is no shar‘ī objection to the procedure in itself. The ruling would be the same whether they are permanent marriages or temporary ones. Nor is it different if one of them is permanent and the other temporary.

2) The born child belongs to those whose sperm and egg are used in the procedure. It is problematic to say that the one whose uterus is used is the mother. Therefore, caution in matters of lineage insofar as the said woman is concerned has to be observed.

3) In itself, this procedure is permissible.

-Imam Khamenei, Practical Laws of Islam, Importance and Conditions of Medical Issues