[Avodah] establishing mamzerut

[T613K at aol.com]

Arie Folger writes:
>>However, given that he agrees that DNA is  almost 
failsafe (he basically admits to 99%+ accuracy), IVF isn't any less  likely 
than the presumed error rate.

Plus, the possibility of IUF/IVF  is sufficient to let the woman claim that 
the 
child is no mamzer.  Furthermore, if the woman can thus claim, so can we 
claim 
for her  (essentially applying the reasoning of nishtaheh  hazera').<<

.
>>>>>
1.  Does everyone agree that if the sperm came from a donor but not  through 
intercourse then the baby is not a mamzer?  Certainly I would never  have 
taken a chance of casting doubt on my children's yichus that way.  If  the woman's 
husband is a kohen but the donor sperm comes from a non-kohen (or a  non-Jew) 
-- what is the status of the child?  Non-mamzer and a kohen?   Non-mamzer but 
non-kohen either?  Challal?
 

2.  You keep talking about IVF as a way of having the baby be a  non-mamzer, 
i.e., one way the baby would have DNA from a man to whom his mother  was not 
married.  But there is a simpler way, which is has been around a  lot longer 
and is still much more commonly used, when the woman is fertile and  her husband 
is not, and that is artificial insemination with donor sperm.   AI with DS, 
like IVF using DS, at best raises doubts about the yichus of  the child so 
conceived and I just can't see frum people using donor sperm in  either of these 
scenarios.  Again I ask the same question as above: does  everyone agree that 
the baby is not a mamzer if the sperm was obtained in a  doctor's office and 
not through intercourse?  And what is the yichus of the  baby thus produced if 
his mother's husband (social father) is a  kohen?
 
3.  A third question suggests itself.  What is the yichus  status of an IVF 
baby whose mother and father ARE married to each other (husband  sperm, no 
third-party donor sperm) -- since by definition an IVF baby is not the  result of 
normal intercourse?  If you say that a DNA-donor does  not make the baby a 
mamzer, does that mean that there is no relation between the  DNA-donor and the 
baby even when the donor and the mother /are/  married?



--Toby  Katz
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