[Avodah] childbirth

[Chana Luntz]

Further on point 2 of RET's post on this subject, namely

> 2. In the medical shiurim of R. Zilberstein he has several times dealt 
> with the question whether a woman can get pregnant when she has a 
> serious > disease that the pregnancy will aggravate even to the point 
> of pikuach nefesh. His standard answer is that the woman is not 
> required to but is allowed to get pregnant if she wishes. Her desire for
>children overrides putting herself into danger.

> Though he does not mention it a similar situation occurs when one's 
> job entails danger that we pasken that can is allowed to take on a 
> dangerous profession, eg Nodah BeYehuda allows one to become a hunter 
> (he has side problems that are not relevant here).

I don't think you need to go as far as analogising to a dangerous
profession.  As it states in Nedarim 64b Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said, any
person who does not have children is considered as dead as it says havu li
banim v'im ain meta anochi" (Breshis 30:1).  

If you are prepared to take that statement seriously (ie that Rachel Imanu
was not overstating the case) then for all the risks of pregnancy and of
sakanas nefashos, such risks will perforce need to be set against the
pikuach nefesh situation which is created if a woman such as Rachel Imanu
remains childless.  

If you accept this, then the difficulty in permitting a woman who feels like
Rachel Imanu to getting pregnant, goes away, at least the first time.

However, it does not seem as clear that:

a) a similar calculation can be applied to subsequent children (does Rav
Zilberstein hold similarly even in a case where the woman already has ten
children who need her and who run the risk of being deprived of a mother if
she shortens her life by having yet another?);

b) one can necessarily assume the same calculation for every woman
(certainly Elchanan, when faced with Chana being in a similar situation,
believed that she should be content with what he was able to give her. Was
he wrong not just in the specific case but also in general? although to
counterbalance that, the midrash would seem to apply it generally - and to
men as well as women).

So while the intense desire for children can, it seems to me, get you to a
partial resolution to the questions raised by Rav Moshe in a different way
from Rav Moshe (ie not by saying the danger does not exist, but by
acknowledging that it does exist, while positing a greater danger should
children not be produced), it does not to my mind provide a full answer.  It
might get a bit closer to an answer if one posits that banim in this context
means the d'orisa fulfilment of the mitzvah (ie if Rachel Imanu and the
d'orisa halacha are talking about the same thing) then perhaps you can
answer Rav Moshe's question as to how Hashem could command pru u'rvu with
this response. Even this is not straightforward however.  Chana may have
ended up having five children, but would we have said she was not answered
if she had none other than Shmuel?  

Regards

Chana