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A woman is pregnant with quadruplets; is it permissible for her to abort two?

05-06-2000

Question 11047

There is a woman who cannot have children. The doctors examined her and discovered that her eggs were dead. They did an operation to transplant eggs and she became pregnant with four embryos. When the doctors discovered this and told her husband, he said that he did not want four children, because his wife might get too tired. He told them to abort two of them and leave two. The doctors said, “We will not do that unless we have a fatwa from Shaykh Muhammad ibn Saalih al-‘Uthaymeen.” The pregnancy has already lasted three months, so is it permissible for the doctors to do this operation, since they have agreed to wait for your opinion?

Answer

Praise be to Allah.

We will not speak here about the operation to transplant eggs, since the matter is finished with in this case. With regard to aborting some of the foetuses which are in her womb, if there is any fear for the mother’s life and the fourth month of the pregnancy has not passed, then it is OK; if the pregnancy is past four months, then it is not permissible to abort any of the foetuses under any circumstances.

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