answering a telephone on Shabbat to a person with substance abuse that might relapse
May a 12 Step sponsor or fellow 12 step member use a cell phone to answer a phone call on fellow member on Shabbat if
My question concerns sperm possibly to be donated by a father-in-law. My daughter and her husband (I have been authorized to contact you on their behalf) have been married for three years, and recently, through infertility testing, her husband was diagnosed with azoospermia. While considering their options they thought about using his father’s sperm since it would contain the same family genes for intelligence, health, etc. Please let us know your feelings as my daughter cannot discuss this with a rabbi. She wants to know the religious implications of accepting sperm from her father-in-law.
This shayla confirms the impact of the secular press on the value system of even Torah-committed families. The anovulatory pill separated sex from reproduction. Assisted reproductive technologies separated reproduction from sex and family.
The late Rabbi Moshe Feinstein ruled that without a marital act there are no issurei bi’a (you cannot commit adultery with a catheter/syringe). However, the suggestion that semen be provided by one who is a family member, interdicted by issur ‘arayot d’oraita, cannot be condoned for the following reasons:
1. The establishment of a psychological intimacy between the genetic parents—since the halakhic father is the sperm donor (the genetic father) according to Jewish law. The mother will know she is carrying her father-in-law’s child and so will he. No good will come of this.
2. “Competitive fatherhood” between son and father during the lifetime of the child is prohibited.
3. “Inversion of generations”: since halakhically, the child will be the brother of his own “rearing father,” not the son. [See: yerusha, aveilut, kibbud av.]
4. Semen procurement (according to the pesaq of R. Feinstein) would have to be obtained derekh tashmish with the mother-in-law.
For all these reasons, and some others, the use of semen from one of the issurei ‘arayot must be strictly prohibited.
Please ask your daughter to consult her physician about the ICSI procedure using an isolated sperm cell which often is available in the ejaculate or in testicle biopsy (or testicle aspiration). If no mature sperm cell is available in her case, she should ask about the success rate in using 2° spermatocytes as male gametes via ICSI—if his testes contain these cells.
May a 12 Step sponsor or fellow 12 step member use a cell phone to answer a phone call on fellow member on Shabbat if
שלום, ברצוני לדעת על המתת חסד באיסלם, על קדושת הגוף וכו'. האם תוכלו לסייע בידי?
לרב מרדכי הלפרין שליט"א שו"באשה ראתה כתם על דבר שלא מקבל טומאה (תחתונית) ועל בגד צבעוני בתחילת החודש השני להריונה (למנינם). הפנתי אותה לרופא שקבע
שבוע טוב . ובשורות טובות . יש כאן שאלה קצת דחופה זוג שנולדה להם ילדה בשבוע 41 להריון . ולצערנו נפטרה לאחר 4 ימים .