Can me and my husband try IVF?

Question:

Can me and my husband try IVF?

Answer:

In The Name Of Allah, The Most-Merciful, The Most Kind

IVF is an abbreviation of In-vitro fertilisation, which is a process of fertilisation where an egg is combined with sperm outside the body, in vitro. The process involves monitoring and stimulating a woman’s ovulatory process, removing an ovum or ova from the woman’s ovaries and letting sperm fertilise them in a liquid in a laboratory.

The rule regarding any form of artificial insemination is that only the husband and wife’s sperm and eggs may be used for the process, the use of a third party’s sperm or eggs is taking to zina and would be considered a major sin.

The Council of the Islamic Fiqh Academy reviewed the different angles and facets of artificial insemination in-depth, by consulting physicians and scholars on the matter.

They concluded that there are seven known ways for artificial insemination whereby the first five of them are prohibited according to the Shariah and the last two are permissible.

1. The fertilisation taking place between the sperm taken from the husband and the eggs taken from a woman who is not his wife, and then the fertilized ovum being implanted into the womb of his wife.

2. The fertilisation taking place between the sperm taken from a man who is not the husband and the eggs taken from the wife, and then the fertilized ovum being implanted into the womb of the wife.

3. The fertilisation taking place in-vitro between the sperm and the eggs taken from the spouses, and then the fertilized ovum being implanted into the womb of a volunteer woman (i.e. surrogate motherhood).

4. The fertilisation taking place in-vitro between the sperm of a man and eggs of a woman who are both strangers to one another, and then the fertilized ovum being implanted into the womb of another man’s wife.

5. The fertilisation taking place in-vitro between the sperm and the eggs taken from the spouses, and then the fertilized ovum is implanted into the womb of the husband’s other wife.

6. The sperm of the husband and the eggs of the wife are taken and fertilized in-vitro, and then the fertilized ovum is implanted into the womb of the wife.

7. Artificial insemination, by taking the sperm of the husband and inserting it in the appropriate place of his wife’s womb, for fertilisation.

Only Allah Ta’ala knows best

Mufti Umer Farooq Saleem