Egg Donation

[Daniele]

Greetings!  I have a quick question.  My sister is now a baptised JW.  My husband and I are not JWs.  My husband and I have been unable to conceive.  My sister was all set to donate eggs to be fertilized with my husband's sperm and then to be put in a surrogate mother(also NOT a JW).   We consider this private, family business and my sister has repeatedly said that morally and ethically she can see no harm in it.  She wants very badly to do this for us.  However, a friend of hers found out and spread our family business to the elders at my sister's congregation.  She was reprimanded and threatened with disfellowshipping if she went through with the donation.  She is heartbroken as are we.  Where on earth do they find in the bible that such an act of LOVE would be wrong?  What is their evidence?  Will they really disfellowship her if she goes through with this and they find out?

[Hide]

My, oh my. I do hope that your sister will see her way to do whatever it is that she really wants to do. What a wonderful thing to have a child with the help of your own sister! If Jehovah's Witnesses were strictly following Old Testament law, then they would embrace the surrogate mother provision. Strangely, the Witnesses embrace the Old Testament law on not eating animal blood but reject this wonderful provision to bring a wanted child into the world.

I am referring to the account in Genesis 38 where Judah tells his son Onan to have relations with his brother's wife so that she can have offspring. Onan did have relations, but realizing that the offspring would not be called his, he would withdraw and "spill his seed" as it is said. The having relations was approved. The withdrawing so that there was no offspring was not approved.

Anyway, Jehovah's Witnesses take none of this to account. The official teaching is that being artificially inseminated with the semen of a man that is not the woman's husband is adultery, on both parts. The man for giving his semen to a woman not his wife and the woman for receiving semen from a man not her husband. Any form of sharing semen, or uniting semen with eggs, even for the noble purpose of life, is viewed as fornication.

Would they really disfellowship her for going through with this? Probably. She would at a minimum be severely "counseled". If she showed sincere sorry for her wrong course, she might not be disfellowshipped. BUT, since they have already talked to her about it, they view her going ahead as showing blatant disregard for Bible counsel.

Again, I do hope that your sister does what SHE wants to do, no regrets. Medical procedures are private matters. And this is certainly a private family matter. NO ONE outside the involved parties needs to know anything about this.

Robert Jones