Infertility and Rabbis

Yesterday's New York Times had an article on rabbinical students at Yeshiva University getting some basic training in matters of infertility. Topics included "everything from the shelf life of sperm samples to the mechanics of intracytoplasmic fertilization to the ethics of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis." The article mentioned a few of the more complicated situations that may arise:

"Let's say a woman has a fully functional womb but her eggs are not viable," said Rabbi Kenneth Brander of Yeshiva, the course instructor. "Her sister says, 'Take some of my eggs.' Who's the aunt and who's the mother?" He went on. "What is the relationship between son and father where conception happened posthumously? Does the son say Kaddish for the father?" he asked, referring to the Jewish prayer for the dead.

If a couple has six girls and seeks fertility treatment to try for a boy, may they destroy a fertilized egg of the wrong gender? Can a husband in a divorce unilaterally destroy the couple's stockpile of frozen fertilized eggs?

"This is not like 'Star Trek' science," said Rabbi Brander, a dean at Yeshiva, which has the largest Orthodox rabbinical seminary in the country. "This is stuff that comes up every day. And if the rabbi doesn't understand reproductive technology he can't answer the questions effectively. If he doesn't know the Jewish law he can't answer them, either."

And, later:

There will always be some questions that elude easy answers. What if a single woman in her 20's wants to put off motherhood to pursue a career and seeks to freeze some of her eggs for later use? Jews are instructed to multiply fruitfully. Would a rabbi send the wrong message by condoning the postponement of starting a family? And what about the possibility of complications?

I'm glad YU is recognizing this need, and making it a public "thing." One concern, though: will these rabbis, with their general understanding of the basics in infertility, be appropriately deferential to the experts when confronted with actual questions? Or will a little knowledge prove to be too much of a good thing, leading these men to fancy themselves sufficiently educated to rule on any question? There's a lot of wiggle room in halacha, but without a thorough understanding of where all of it is, many people (rabbis included) tend to err on the side of being too strict. This can have disasterous effects in the realm of infertility, where a few wasted cycles or an omitted diagnosis can make the difference between getting effective treatment in a timely manner, or missing the boat entirely. Well, maybe it's not that dramatic, but it's not nothing either.

And here's an interesting new factoid (at least, to me) from that article:

Abdulaziz Sachedina, an expert on Islamic bioethics at the University of Virginia, said he often gets requests from imams and from Muslim doctors to parse some of the trickier issues.

Under Islamic law, for example, a couple may use a surrogate mother, but the husband must take the surrogate as a temporary wife. In the United States, Professor Sachedina said, "This is done very quietly."

Many thanks to OrthoMom for the link!

---

In other news, that weird cervical mucus has reverted to its usual boring milky-white watery-creamy self. I'm not sure what to make of that.