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To have a child. Artificial insemination

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In order to get pregnant my doctors sugessted me to under go intra uterine inssemination in which semen of husband is taken and after some procedure is introduced in uters. Is it permissible or not.

Answer

ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION

The techniques of artificial insemination have been used in domestic animal
breeding as early as the fourteenth century among Arabs to inseminate
horses. In the early 1890s researchers in Moscow developed A1 for sheep,
cattle and horses, and the technique is now a major part of the sheep and
cattle industry worldwide. At the end of the 18th century, an English
clinician, one John Hunter, claimed to have successfully applied the
technique to humans. Successful experiments in France were followed by the
report of an American doctor in 1866 that he had performed fifty-five
inseminations on six women and had obtained the first A1 baby in this
country.

Artificial human insemination is the introduction of semen in the woman’s
vagina, cervical canal or uterus mechanically. It’s purpose is to produce
pregnancy when the wish to have a child apparently cannot be satisfied
through normal sexual intercourse. This breakthrough in technology is
probably well known to most people. The extended press coverage of Louise
Brown, the first child born as a result of artificial reproduction on 25
July 1978 created great interest in the field of human reproduction.
Artificial reproduction is a term used to illustrate the various means of
having children. These include techniques ranging from the relatively simple
artificial insemination using semen of the husband (AIH), to artificial
insemination using semen of an anonymous donor (AID) and sometimes the
husband’s semen is mixed with that of the donor (AIM), to the high tech of
IVF which involves the fertilization of a sex cell followed by the transfer
or replacement of the resulting embryo into the woman, sometimes of a
surrogate mother.

Types of artificial insemination
Artificial insemination using the husband’s semen: This is not frequently
resorted to because the husband’s semen is rarely of any value. However, it
is appropriate in the following situations, viz:
– Where there are factors (such as physical difficulties) on the part of
either the husband or a wife or both preventing successful intercourse, but
where the fertility of both parties is otherwise adequate. Male physical
difficulties include premature ejaculation, physical impotence and obesity.
Female physical difficulties may include obesity, vaginal scarring or
tumours, abnormal uterine position, vaginismus and cervical hostility.
– Where the husband is subfertile because of defective spermatozoa, the
chances of conception may be improved if the fertile part of the semen can
be separated from the less fertile part. Several specimens of a husband’s
semen can be collected to form one single insemination. A1, therefore may be
more effective than natural intercourse.

The advantages of AIH, it is argued, is that a husband and wife can find a
family through reproduction. Consequently, a husband will not feel left out
of the reproductive process. Furthermore, there is no difficulty or
ambiguity with the resulting child’s legal status, and the question of
parenthood is not raised. AIH is, thus, the least controversial of available
artificial techniques, morally, socially and legally.

Nevertheless, would these solutions to infertility be justified? Would it
not be tantamount to interfering with the systematic planning of Allah? It
is definitely true that such technology can be abused, but we cannot condemn
it as being totally against the Sunan of Allah since infertility can be
classified as a “disease” or “defect”. The saying of the Prophet “for every
disease there is a cure” gives Muslims the impetus to try and do something
about it. However, inspite of corrective surgery, various other techniques
could create ethical problems, which would now be examined jurisdically.

[ Islamic Principles on Family Planning; Mufti Allie Haroun Sheik pages
133 – 134 ]

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