Comparative Investigation of Surrogacy Laws in Asian Islamic Countries: A Narrative Review

Background aim: The surrogacy is a desirable reproductive technology for family formation, which faces disagreements in the ethics community, and Islamic jurists. This study aimed to compare surrogacy laws in Asian Islamic countries.Methods: This narrative review employed the method described by Cronin (2008). Persian and English articles indexed in databases of Scopus, Cochrane, PubMed, Science Direct, Medline, and Google search engine, as well as Iranian data bases of  Magiran, SID, Iranmedex related were searched between 1987 and 2022. Related legal cases in 13 Asian Muslim countries, and Islamic scholars’ fatwa were also searched. The keywords included “surrogacy, surrogate uterus, surrogate mother, assisted reproductive techniques, third party reproduction, infertility, law, jurisprudence, ethics and Islam”.Results: Out of 63 articles, 28 studies included in the review. The results showed that there are three groups of countries including 1) Countries where performing any surrogacy procedures is illegal and haram including Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Turkey 2) countries in which surrogacy is legal according to the regulations of the country like Iran, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan) and 3) countries that have no specific laws i e. surrogacy is not explicitly allowed, but it is not prohibited either such as Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Brunei and Turkmenistan. Conclusion: Various surrogacy laws in different countries require comprehensive guidelines for infertile couples and donors, including jurisprudential and advisory legal aspects. Drafting contracts, and reviewing and resolving legal ambiguities in this field helps to create a better culture and more efficiency of surrogacy.