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the child will not be considered the father’s is all the more relevant to
in vitro fertilization where the sperm is not placed into the woman’s
uterus but into a test tube3.

It is further possible that the child does not follow the lineage of
the mother either, [in the mishnah (Chullin 3:2), the womb, or uterus
is referred to as eim, the Hebrew word for mother; since the fetus
grows inside the uterus, it is referred to by the same word as mother].
If the fetus doesn’t grow in its mother’s womb but in the womb of a
surrogate, it is highly doubtful whether the child follows the lineage
of the mother who provided the ovum from which it developed4.

3. The opinions of the poskim regarding the lineage of a child born through artifi-
cial insemination are discussed at length earlier, in siman 250. See earlier, at the
end of siman 254 [Note 5, #1] where we mention the possibility of opinion being
unanimous that a child conceived through in vitro fertilization is not considered
his father’s child.

4. The topic of surrogate motherhood – whether the child is considered the off-
spring of the owner of the ovum from which it developed or of the surrogate
mother – has far reaching consequences in regard to the child’s status as a Jew,
either if the ovum came from a non-Jewess or if the surrogate mother was not
Jewish. While many couples yearn to hold a child of their own through the do-
nation or purchase of an ovum from a non-Jewess, the question of which woman
is considered the child’s mother raises the issue of having to convert the child.
See the pamphlet Yeshurun [Vol. 21, Nisan 5769, pgs. 535-6], where the au-
thors cite the view of my father-in-law Rav Y.S. Elyashiv zt”l, regarding surro-
gate motherhood as follows:
This [procedure] should preferably be avoided as it is unseemly but if it was
done the owner of the fertilized ovum probably determines the child’s lineage.
Therefore, if the ovum is from a non-Jewess – even if the surrogate mother is
Jewish – the children will follow the lineage of the non Jewish owner of the
ovum and so that they will be Jewish they will require conversion. The [status of
the] surrogate mother who carries the pregnancy and gives birth has no bearing
in determining the child’s lineage, because in regard to anything related to lin-
eage the womb is considered to be [merely] an external vessel in which the fetus
developed and from where it emerged, whereas the child’s lineage is determined
solely by the sperm of the man and the ovum of the woman that comprise the
material from which the child develops.
On the other hand, in an opposite case – such as the one under present dis-
cussion – where the fertilized ovum belongs to a Jewish woman for whom preg-
nancy is dangerous and it is implanted in the womb of a non Jewish surrogate,

IVF and Surrogate Motherhood 2 103