What are ISKCON’s views on adoption, in-vitro fertilization and surrogacy?

Transcript

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Hare Krishna question what are ISKCON’s views on adoption in vitro fertilization and surrogacy answer ISKCON as an organization has is based on the Vedic scriptures as given by Shri Prabhupada and regarding specific contemporary issues there may not be any explicit statements in scripture directly and sometimes some technologies may be developed later that there may not be statements directly in Prabhupada’s books also so as a movement we don’t have any body which gives official positions on such issues this will happen as ISKCON grows so I am not in the position to to tell about any official ISKCON position but I can talk about the inferences that can be made based on what we have in scripture so firstly with respect to adoption especially in situations where the parents where a couple has not been able to have children for a long time adoption has abandoned precedence and definitely the desire to have children is a very natural human desire and we see that concern repeatedly in scripture whether it is Vashat Maharaj wanting a son or whether it is Pandu wanting a son or there are so many scriptures are filled with the sages having concern for children and then working towards getting the children working often in many extraordinary ways so those extraordinary ways could involve things like doing yajna and elaborate sacrifices specifically for as it is putrakamashti yajna the word putra is often used in an inclusive sense to refer to progeny and or it can also involve something like the practice of niyoga wherein the for whatever reason the husband is not able to get a child then the wife uses the wife is asked to unite with either some god or as it happened with Kunti she had children at the instruction of Pandu through the devatas Indra, Vayu and Dharma that is Yamaraja so the point is that there are examples of quite substantial measures being done to get children so it’s not that if we are not able to get children we just have to accept it as Krishna’s will yes ultimately nothing happens without Krishna’s will but there are precedents of people in the Vedic, in the scriptures doing special efforts to try to get children so now we live in a current age where many of the measures that the kings and others in the past used are not accessible to us because of me not having say brahminic procedures who can chant the mantras or whatever reasons so there is paravidya and there is aparavidya and aparavidya paravidya is transcendental knowledge aparavidya is material knowledge so in today’s world the medical technology is often science in general is functioning science especially through its technology aspect is doing what karmakant would do in the past so many of the material needs and desires of people which were satisfied through the system of dharma artha kama are now being satisfied through science and technology so the principle remains the same although the method of course is different and in general the method that were used in the past were more harmonious with spiritual principles and the method that are used now are not harmonious with spiritual principles they may be directly disharmonious also or rather how harmonious and disharmonious they are we will have to evaluate so with this background certainly as I said adoption there are abandoned precedents Kunti herself was given by her father to another king because he did not have a child Dashrath Maharaj gave his daughter Shanta to Rampad Maharaj so we have Mahabharat, Ramayana both we have examples of children being given and being adopted and once they are adopted they are considered to be children of their adopted parents itself now Prutha in fact changed her name to Kunti because then eventually she was connected with Kuntibhoj so the connection is quite serious quite formal and it is fully accepted so if devotees are not able to have children to adopt a child and of course to whatever using our god given intelligence whatever discretion we can exercise so that we adopt a proper child that we can do so now moving onward to other things like say in vitro fertilization and surrogacy so now sometimes some people have concerns that we would like to have our own lineage continuing and having our own lineage continuing means that we would like to have our own in today’s language you may say genes in the past people would talk about our own seeds continuing our dynasty continuing so that’s why people may not want adoption they may want our own and that’s why they may prefer something else adoption is definitely better because it is entirely natural it is very benevolent also because children who might otherwise be unsheltered or orphaned they get shelter and they also get the opportunity to if they are being adopted by devotees to move on towards their spiritual journey towards Krishna but if such other concerns are there then in IV fertilization or surrogacy some people might consider that so now among these two surrogacy is actually much more disruptive and intrusive I would say disharmonious than IV fertilization IV fertilization essentially involves there are technicalities but essentially what it involves is that for whatever reason if the egg is not able to develop in the mother’s womb into embryo then it is taken out and it is separately developed now we see something similar being done in the Mahabharata when Gandhari has an apparent miscarriage so it is not exactly the same because of whatever reasons the the embryo came out before the time of pregnancy of delivery and then it was it seemed like stillborn but then Vyasadeva arranged for it to be kept in an external situation in an external conducive environment and then from that the Kauravas were born so in this case if we see it was Gandhari in a fit of anger hit her womb because the pregnancy had gone on for a very long time or rather not exactly the pregnancy had gone on for a long time but that Kunti had delivered her first child before Kunti had begot had begot her first child before her so the point is that it was motivated by anger but still Vyasadeva intervened and the principle was there was union but after that there was growth some growth but there was interception in the growth so the remaining growth was done outside sometimes some devotees compare that to cloning now there are that the way one embryo gives hundred Kauravas that gives some level of comparison to cloning but actually cloning involves exact duplication and the hundred Kauravas are not exactly duplicated so the example of the Pandavas of the Kauravas would be more of IV fertilization more similar to IV fertilization and less to cloning but either way the point of having the child develop outside the embryo develop outside the womb there is some precedent for that and especially if there is some biological impairment because of which there is infertility and that is something which can be resorted to surrogacy involves crossing several lines there are ethical lines and there are emotional lines and then there are spiritual lines also which are crossed where basically it’s a womb is hired and whereas in IV fertilization it’s basically external device is used external conducive environment as it is used to develop what is called the test tube baby but in surrogacy it is a woman’s womb is basically used and naturally if a woman has begotten the child has carried the child in a womb then after that whose child it belongs to and on what basis this is to be decided these are all very serious ethical issues and this involves now what involves what is unnatural what is natural the definitions of that may change over time but we do know that there are certain levels of intrusion into the order of nature which are quite jarring and as I said that in the case of in the case of surrogacy without getting into technicalities here there may be different ways in which the surrogate mother may get the get the get the embryo get the egg and the pregnancy may take place but the point is that because there is a complete separation involvement of an entirely different person and then once that different person is involved then there is the that person becomes that child that is born becomes that woman’s child then to consider that child to be one’s own child that is that is quite it is it is a whole thing is very messy so as I said emotionally, ethically to use a body as a just as to use a womb or to reduce a person to a womb and then to use a womb simply as a incubator for developing embryo that is quite dehumanizing and again there are no precedents for this you know there are there are precedents where say a king like when Gandhari was pregnant for a long time Dhritharashtra he united with one of his maid servants and then Vidura was born but then that Vidura is considered not to be Gandhari’s son he is considered to be just Dhritharashtra’s son but it is through that maid servant so by no stretch can it be compared with surrogacy so the concept of surrogacy involves lot of as I said ethical, emotional lines are being crossed and because there is no precedent and because it involves dehumanizing a person it is best that it be avoided and devotees can as I said on the continuum adoption there is absolutely no problem and adoption devotees can definitely do that if that’s what is required for getting children but on the continuum in vitro IV fertilization would be in between and surrogacy would be at the bottom most and in terms of it being unnatural and it is best to avoid that of course again to repeat there are no clear cut directives which we have for many of these ethical dilemmas and it is not just in the Krishna consciousness movement but in general when the scriptures don’t give direct statements about certain issues then there are different devotees may come up with different positions based on their understanding of scripture and their understanding of what is important in the letter as well as the spirit of scripture and so that’s why there may be different positions and what I have given is my understanding based on the inferences that I have drawn from scripture. Thank you.
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