Is stem cell research allowed in Islam?
According to the Shar’ah, we should make a distinction between actual life and potential life. Also we should make a clear distinction between the fertilised ovum in the dish and the fertilised ovum in the womb of its mother. Indeed an embryo is valuable. It has the potential to grow into a human being, but it is not yet a human being. Similarly, there is big difference in having something in a test tube or dish or something in the body of a human being. Because these embryos were developed initially in the laboratory solely for the sake of reproduction, due to limitations of the in vitro fertilisation technique, they were produced in excess of what was required for this purpose. As a result, the remaining embryos would have either been frozen indefinitely or destroyed. If these embryos were treated as full human, it would have been forbidden to produce them in excess and to destroy them later. No-one treats them as humans. Destroying such embryos is not called and cannot be called abo
