OUTSOURCING PREGNANCY AN ETHNIC-RELIGIOUS EVALUATION

OUTSOURCING PREGNANCY AN ETHNIC-RELIGIOUS EVALUATION

ABSTRACT

Despite the dysfunctionality of modern thought, the role and the place of children in marriage has remained central to many married couples. That children are the beautiful gifts of God in a conjugal union is axiomatic to many adherents of different religions. The divine injunction of procreation ―multiply and fill the earth‖ (The Jerusalem Bible, Genesis 1:28) is an attestation of this divine mandate. This could account for why many married couples, are ready to go any length in the ultimate search for offspring. Childlessness dates back to primeval history. An interesting biblical account is the narrative concerning Sarah, the wife of Abraham. Sarah could not have children in the beginning. She gave her handmaid, Hagar, to her husband Abraham to produce them a child (Genesis 16:1-5). The human reproductive method used in this narrative was copulation. While it could be exegetically argued that childlessness predates the Abrahamic era with no known cause(s) except as the will of God (1Samuel 1:6), it could, however, be asserted with scientific certainty that the causes of childlessness in our contemporary era are multi-factorial. Current medical survey shows that ten to fifteen percent of married couples are unable to have children on their own today