EGG DONATION AND RELIGION

At PVED, we are often asked, "Is being a parent via egg donation compatible with my religion?" This is a complicated question, one we encourage our members and visitors to explore individually if it is a concern. Religion is extremely personal, and religious interpretations of third party reproduction vary greatly among religions and even within specific religions. If you are interested in learning more about how egg donation fits into your particular belief system, we recommend that you consult with a clergy member of your faith for more detailed information.

Jewish FAQ’s concerning egg donation as a path toward getting pregnant and bearing children

The Torah, Talmud, Jewish law codes and traditional commentators never dealt with donor egg IVF, or any IVF at all – it didn’t exist back then. Rulings made with regard to these technologies are based on close examinations of the traditional texts with an eye toward how the situations mentioned there might apply to situations involving these kinds of assisted reproductive technology today. Given the wide-range of perspectives and interpretations of Jewish law, it is possible to come up with a wide range of answers to these questions. This has always been true throughout Jewish history with any given topic. When looking for answers to these sometimes emotional and difficult questions, it is important to understand how the posek – the one who is answering the question – arrived at their conclusions, based on traditional Jewish texts and Jewish-law precedent. In the FAQ’s below, I present the mainstream, popular halakhic (Jewish law/tradition) answers to the questions.

Does Judaism allow a woman who can not get pregnant using her own eggs to use donor eggs in order to build a family?

The simple answer: yes. The longer answer: There has been much written about this and it would be impossible to outline the way in which rabbinic authorities reached their conclusions in the space allotted here. In short, a close look at traditional Jewish texts reveals that a couple who wants to conceive and can only do so with donor eggs is permitted to do so.

Does the egg donor have to be Jewish in order for the baby to be considered Jewish?

Jewish tradition states that the baby is the religion of the woman who gestates and births the child. If the woman who carries the child is Jewish, the child will be Jewish. Recently, there have been rulings by ultra-Orthodox rabbis stating that for the child to be Jewish, the egg donor must be Jewish. They state that the true mother of the child is the one who gave that child her genetic information. The textual/traditional sources for these rabbis’ rulings aren’t clear. At the same time, high-standing, mainstream, Orthodox rabbinical scholars disagree strongly with this. They state that it is, in fact, the woman who gestates the child who gives that child her religion.

In short: it is the woman who bears the child who passes the religion on to the child. If the woman who births the child is Jewish, the child will be Jewish, and vice versa. At the same time, if a donor egg recipient has any doubts about the religion of her baby, she can always take her baby through a conversion ritual to ensure the child’s Jewishness.

Rabbi Rachel Brown is Conservative Rabbi, ordained through the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at American Jewish University in Los Angeles. She has a special interest in Jewish law and how it is interpreted for everyday life. Rabbi Brown is currently serving as the Rabbi for a Conservative congregation in southeast Pennsylvania. She is reachable at rabbirachelbrown@gmail.com