תרומת זרע מהסב עקב בעיות פוריות אצל האב

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.