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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>Arie Folger writes:<BR>>>However, given that he agrees that DNA is
almost <BR>failsafe (he basically admits to 99%+ accuracy), IVF isn't any less
likely <BR>than the presumed error rate.<BR><BR>Plus, the possibility of IUF/IVF
is sufficient to let the woman claim that the <BR>child is no mamzer.
Furthermore, if the woman can thus claim, so can we claim <BR>for her
(essentially applying the reasoning of nishtaheh
hazera').<<<BR><BR>.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>>>>>></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>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?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial
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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>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?</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>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?</DIV>
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<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10"><STRONG></STRONG><BR><B>--Toby
Katz<BR>=============</B></FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>