Media agencies say the practice of commercial surrogacy in India is booming. There is no exact figure and data on the subject but doctors work with surrogate agencies in every metropolitan city of India. Surrogate agencies hire poor, physically healthy women for surrogacy from the remote area of India and other underdeveloped countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, etc.
India is considered a very viable place for this job due to the economic condition prevailing in and around the country. International surrogate agencies focus Indian market due to cheap supply of surrogate mothers and resources. According to Sky News (August 6, 2008), a surrogate mother, despite little education, earns $2500 plus medical cost of the service. However, surrogate agencies charge $5000 to $7000 from each couple and gay for surrogating a baby. While other sources reveal that poor women get ready for a little amount of money and some time they get almost nothing. Now one can imagine the exploitative tendency of agencies and people from the world, particularly developed countries in the West.
Due to unhealthy atmosphere, high cost and legal procedure in America and Europe, lavish couples and gays are turning to Indian market. Sometimes, in the UK surrogate mothers do not hand over babies to their genetic parents. They demand huge amount of money. The UK government also lends support to such mothers and gives them right to keep the baby. Three years ago, BBC English News Service also endorsed this fact.
Moreover, UK’s women do not get ready to render such a job due to hardness and many other natural problems. They love easiness of life and desire to be called mothers without bearing children.
Nowadays, some modern Muslims search permissibility of surrogacy. Let us see the validity of surrogacy in Islam and common ethos.
Surrogate motherhood is often referred as “hiring womb”. In this case, a woman is impregnated with the fertilized ovum of another woman who is unable or unwilling to conceive on her own. Here the woman serves as a carrier for the fertilized ovum of the strange couple.
There are two kinds of surrogacy: classic and gestational. A classic surrogate is inseminated with sperm of the baby’s father. Her own egg is fertilized, and she carries the baby to term on behalf of the intended parents. In gestational surrogacy, the baby is conceived entirely by the intended parents: the biological mother’s egg is fertilized with the biological father’s sperm. The embryo is then placed in the surrogate’s uterus and carried to term. In both cases, a woman willing to surrogate makes herself available to be injected with the fertilized ovum and intended mother’s egg into her own womb and then carries the child to its full term on behalf of the desired couple. It is often done for a specified remuneration. First, it is not allowed in Islam, because the process involved is injecting the sperm of a strange male into the uterus of a woman to whom he is not married. It is tantamount to fornication. The Holy Qur’an enjoins Muslims to guard their private parts save and except from their respective spouses [the Qur’an, Surah Al-Muminun, 23:5]. Surrogacy goes beyond this limit, and Islam warns those who go beyond this limit, moreover call them transgressors [the Qur’an 23:7].
Surrogate parenting and test-tube baby is human interference in the Divine Scheme. It may result in disaster and calamity. God created human beings in the best natural form. Though science has made many significant advancements in the various fields, it could not and cannot imitate the things created by God. Human reproduction is based on biological and sexual relation of husband and wife – the only natural form of human reproduction. A child carries numerous merits and habits; it cannot be transformed into test-tube-baby or surrogate baby.
A human being is a social being; he needs a human society and real father and mother. A child gets his parents’ name and natural affection which is not possible for a surrogate or test-tube child. Love and affection are not marketable goods which can be bought for money. It is a God gifted thing which develops naturally between a child and his real parents. A robotic and artificially generated being through surrogacy or test tube cannot realise and behave like a human being. He may create problems in society. Natural pregnancy and parenting are part of natural and initial development of human identity and value. Humanistic behaviour and merits are inherited into foetus due to natural process. It cannot be replaced through any other means.
In a nutshell, it should not be promoted in society. Every society has parsimonious people who love nothing but money. They try to get it through any source, whether they have to sell their wombs for surrogacy or sell the kidney of a third person.
Islam gives certain rights to mother and child both. Due to surrogacy, both will be deprived from these rights and rewards. Prophet Muhammad ((may Allah bless and greet him) said that mother has three times more rights on her child than father. Mother cares her baby in childhood; similarly when the child grows and the mother becomes old, the young child cares, and ought to care, for his mother. Both get rewards for their respective duties which are impossible in the case of surrogacy. No society and religion permits this practice. This is a purely lucrative business being promoted in the Godless society. Being a Muslim one should abstain from this shameful and un-Islamic act.