Nowadays, surrogacy has become a common practice across the globe. Every day we hear that celebrities, filmmakers, heroes and heroines, business tycoons, and wealthy women are going to opt for surrogacy. Media agencies say the practice of commercial surrogacy in India is booming. There is no figure and exact data on surrogacy at the micro level but doctors work with surrogate agencies in every metropolitan city of India. Surrogate agencies hire poor, physically healthy women for surrogacy from remote areas of India and other underdeveloped countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, etc.
According to the Global Insight Market report, the surrogate market is one of the booming markets in the world. Recently surrogate market was valued at more than $14 billion for the age of 40 to 42. It is also expected more than 25% growth in the figure by the end of 2023. A separate report predicts that the value of the surrogate market in Europe will cross $60 billion by 2032.
Maybe it happened due to variations in the sample size and group. There is a bit of discrepancy in the forecast of both agencies, but it is a huge market for surrogacy. According to finding of Amecoresearch.com, market for surrogacy was valued at around 6.4 billion in 2021. They forecast the market value for surrogacy would be approximately $11.4 billion.
International Surrogate Agencies are focusing on the Indian market due to the cheap supply of surrogate mothers and resources. India is considered a very viable place for this job due to economic behaviour. The average cost for the entire surrogacy procedure ranging between Rs. 11,00,000 to Rs. 20,00,000 in metropolitan Indian cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi and Kolkata. According to Sky News 6th August 2008, the surrogate mother earns with little education $2500 plus the medical cost of the service. However, surrogate agencies charge $5000 to $7000 for each couple and gay for a surrogate baby. While other sources revealed that poor women get ready for a little money and sometimes get nothing. Now one can imagine the exploitive behaviour of agencies and people from around the world, mainly developed countries of the West.
Due to the unhealthy atmosphere, high cost, and legal procedures in America and Europe, lavish couples and guys are turning their faces to Indian Market. They demand a huge amount of money, and even the UK government also supports mother and gives rights to keep her baby. Sometimes, in the UK, surrogate mothers did not hand over the baby to the genetic parent. A few years ago, BBC English News Service also endorsed this fact in one of the news reports.
Moreover, some women in the UK do not get ready to render such a job due to hardness and many other natural problems. They need an easy job and desire to be called mothers without bearing a child.
Nowadays, some modern Muslims search permissibility of surrogacy. Let’s see the validity of surrogacy in Islam and common ethos.
Surrogate motherhood is often referred to as a “hiring womb”. In this case, a woman is impregnated with the sperm of couples from all over the world who are unable to conceive on their own. Here woman serves as a carrier for the fertilised ovum of the couple.
There are two kinds of surrogacy: classic and gestational. A classic surrogate is inseminated with sperm from the child’s father. Her own egg is fertilised, 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 fertilised with the biological father’s sperm. The embryo is then placed in the surrogate’s uterus and carried to term.
In both cases, the woman makes available to inject the fertilised ovum and mother’s egg into her own womb and then carries the child to its full term on behalf of the other couple. It is often done in lieu of a specified remuneration.
First, it is not allowed in Islam, because it is introduced to inject the sperm of a male into the uterus of a woman to whom he is not married. It is similar to fornication. The DivineBook of Islam, the Qur’ān stresses Muslims to guard their private parts except for their spouses [Qur’ān, Surah Al-Muminoon, 23:5]. Surrogacy goes beyond this limit and Islam warns those who go beyond this limit; moreover,it calls them transgressors. [Quran 23:7]
Surrogate parenting and test tube baby is human interference in the God’s Universe, it may result in disaster and calamity. Allah [God] created the human beings in the best natural form. Though scientific advancement at the pinnacle of innovation is very alluring human lust, but it could not imitate Godly created things. There is a similar verse in the Qur’ān. “And Allah has made for you mates (and companions) of your own nature, and made for you out of them sons and daughters and grandchildren.” [The Qur’ān, 16:72]
Human reproduction is based on the biological and sexual relationship of husband and wife which is the natural form of human reproduction. Allah the Exalted made it permissible through Nikah(Marriage). A child carries numerous merits and habits; it could not be transformed into a test-tube-baby or surrogate baby.
A human being is a social animal; he needs a human society and real father and mother. A child gets his parents’ name and natural affection, which is impossible for a surrogate and test tube child. Love and affection are not commercial goods that are bought with money. It is a God-gifted thing that is nurtured between a child and his real parents.
A robotic and artificially generated human being through surrogacy and a test tube could not realise and behave like a human being. He may create problems in society. Parenting and natural concealment are a natural and initial development of human identity and value. Humanistic behaviour and merits are inherited into foetuses due to natural processes. It could not be replaced through any other means. In a nutshell, it should not be promoted in society. Every society has parsimonious people who like nothing except money. They try to get it through any source, whether they have to hire a woman’s womb or sell the kidney of any third person.
Secondly, Islam gives certain rights to mothers and children. Due to surrogacy, both will be deprived of these rights and rewards. Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said that the mother has three times more rights to her child than the father. Mother cares for her baby in childhood; similarly, when the child has grown, and the mother becomes old, thus young child cares for his mother. Both get the reward for their duty which is impossible through surrogacy. No society or religion permits this practice. It is a purely lucrative business used by philanthropists.
Being a Muslim, one should abstain from this shameful and un-Islamic practice. This is the so-called open-mind idea growing in western countries. Open mind people, who hate religion and God, consider themselves intellectual, exploiting third-world, underdeveloped countries’ women.
[Prof Irfan Shahid is an India-based Shari’ah scholar and economist. He has graduated from Loughborough University, UK. His studies include Economics, Banking, Stock Markets, Islamic Finance, e-commerce, Business Studies and Islamic Studies. He has authored several books and research papers on Economics, Islamic Finance and the Stock Market. Prof Shahid has worked as an adjunct professor at various universities in India and abroad. Currently, he is associated with Mumbai University. He is also working as a consultant for IdrakInternational.Shahid_irfan2002@yahoo.com]