Question:
Due to unavoidable medical reasons his wife’s uterus was removed, so they cannot have children. However, her ovaries still produce eggs. Doctors have suggested that his sperm and his wife’s egg could be used through IVF to create an embryo, which could then be placed in another woman’s womb through surrogacy. The child would biologically belong to them, but another woman would carry the pregnancy. He asks whether this is permissible in Islam.
Answer:
The answer is that surrogacy is not permitted in Islam. In Islam the marital relationship defines the boundaries of reproduction. The Qur’an describes wives as the “field” in which a husband plants his seed. This metaphor means that the reproductive process must take place within the marriage itself.
If a man’s sperm or even the combined embryo of a married couple is placed inside the womb of another woman, then the pregnancy occurs in someone who is not the wife. That contradicts the Qur’anic principle that the wife is the place where the seed should be planted.
Another important issue arises: the identity of the mother. The Qur’an states that the mother is the one who gives birth to the child. If another woman carries the pregnancy and gives birth, she becomes the legal mother according to Islamic law. Therefore, the intended parents cannot simply claim the child as their own.
For these reasons surrogacy is considered impermissible in Islamic law.
However, the brother asked a second question. Doctors told him that even if his wife cannot give birth, it may still be possible through medical treatment to stimulate milk production. If they adopt a child and his wife breastfeeds the child, would that create a maḥram relationship?
Yes, this is permissible. If a woman breastfeeds a child, a milk relationship is established in Islamic law. The child becomes her milk child. Because of that, the child becomes maḥram to her and also to her husband as a milk father.
But it must be understood that this does not change the child’s biological lineage. The child’s real parents remain the biological parents. The adoptive family cannot erase the original parentage or change the lineage. The child can be raised and loved within the family, and the milk relationship will create maḥram rules, but the biological identity must remain known.
So, in summary: surrogacy is not allowed, but adopting a child and establishing a milk relationship through breastfeeding is permissible, provided the child’s original lineage is not erased.