1.1. As said by one of the patients "We have some religious beliefs, if God intends to give us a baby, he will give us. If we do not have a baby, we are not going to take it against God's will through adoption or a third party. Allah told us to try and we will do our best."
1.2. "We believe in god first, and then doctors second. A doctor is only a means for God's will. Who makes the sperm? Who makes the egg? Who makes this small cell to be subdivided? It is all the science of God. He is controlling it."
1.3. God is in command.
2. Fatwas and "Official" Islam
2.1. Muslim physicians and patients participating in medically assisted conception must follow a number of basic guidelines.
2.2. Some exceptions are surrogacy. All forms of this are completely forbidden. Anything involving extracorporeal fertilization of an egg from the wife with sperm from the husband and transfer of the fertilized egg to the uterus of another woman is completely forbidden.
2.3. What is deemed to be immoral by religious authorities may nonetheless be widely and regularly practiced by physicians and their patients.
3. The "Americans"
3.1. Religious opinion from the major religious university in Egypt about IVF.
3.2. Potential incest
3.3. Better connection to an Egyptian physician whom would have a better understanding of the Muslim religion and how the the IVF process is "forbidden."
4. Reproductive Medicine and Religious Morality
4.1. Religion, both Islam and Coptic Christianity in Egypt, represents one of the most fundamental arenas of constraint on the practice and use of new reproductive technologies.
4.2. Religion matters deeply to most Egyptians, including both the doctors and patients involved in the "test tube baby" making.
