Sheikh `Atiyyah Saqr, former head of Al-Azhar Fatwa Committee, states that: “Test-tube babies are the ones conceived through other means than direct sexual intercourse between male and female; they are medically called test-tube babies for they are conceived through artificial insemination first practiced on human beings in 1977 by John Hunther, a well-reputed British doctor.
As for Islam’s stand on this issue, if the process is done by inseminating the husband’s sperm and the wife’s ovum, and fertilization is done directly inside the woman’s uterus, or done outside, then moved later into her uterus for continuation of reproduction process, there is nothing wrong in that. However, this is on condition that extreme caution is displayed during the insemination process to make sure that nothing alien to both husband and wife is mixed with it.
This indicates that artificial insemination carried out with a semen and an ovum obtained from other partners or planted in another woman’s uterus, is completely forbidden. The reason is that such act is tantamount to unlawful sexual intercourse Zina, though it falls short of incurring a prescribed penalty, for it takes another shape from a direct physical contact between male and female.