<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" http-equiv=Content-Type>
<META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 9.00.8112.16457"></HEAD>
<BODY style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 10pt" id=role_body
bottomMargin=7 leftMargin=7 rightMargin=7 topMargin=7><FONT id=role_document
color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 color=#0000ff size=2 face=Arial FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2
face=Arial>From: "Prof. Levine" <llevine@stevens.edu><BR>From
http://tinyurl.com/b2gfquv<BR><BR>>> Until now, rabbis have forbidden any
intervention <BR>to select the sex of baby But Jewish fertility <BR>center
founder Rabbi Menachem Burstein says an <BR>increase in the number of requests
stemming from <BR>deep psychological needs has prompted rabbis to reconsider....
<<<BR><BR><BR>Yitzchok Levine </FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>>>>></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I really have a hard time believing that anyone has a "deep psychological
need" to have a son rather than a daughter, or vice versa. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I also am not very sympathetic to the idea that such a "need" justifies
gender selection -- which can be very expensive and can require invasive and
potentially risky medical intervention. There is a way to separate Y sperm
from X sperm in a lab but it is far from foolproof -- it has anywhere from
a 10% to a 50% failure rate (meaning a 10% to 50% chance that the "wrong"
sex baby will be born). The only way that is foolproof is the much more
expensive and invasive method of having the couple go through IVF, watch the
fertilized ova for a couple of days until they have grown into
several-celled balls, and then test each "ball" to see if it's male or
female, discarding the ones that are the wrong sex.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The one reason that truly does justify the expense, pain and risks, IMO, is
"medical gender selection," in which sex selection can prevent the birth of a
child who carries certain catastrophic genetic diseases. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>A boy may inherit from his mother a defective X chromosome causing a
disease like muscular dystrophy, hemophilia or another genetic disease that is
carried by the mother and can affect her male offspring. In such a case
the parents want only girls because only boys get the disease. Even if a
girl inherits her mother's "bad" X she will not have the disease --
because the second X that she got from her father will protect her from disease
-- though she will be a carrier and can pass it on to /her/ sons.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>One way to prevent the birth of children of the "wrong" sex is to check the
sex of the baby via amniocentesis when the mother is further along in her
pregnancy and then abort the baby if it is the unwanted sex. I think at
that point the baby can also be tested to see if he did inherit his mother's
"bad" X chromosome. Abortion is way easier and cheaper than IVF but
morally reprehensible.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Ironically many Christians consider the discarding of an eight-celled ball
in the lab to be murder, just the same as if you had aborted a fetus or had
strangled a full-term baby after birth. But I don't think there are /any/
Jewish poskim who would say the discarding of such tiny balls of cells is the
same as abortion, let alone the same as murder!</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>BTW yesterday when we were talking about why there might be objections to
IVF, one consideration that we didn't mention was the necessity of discarding
"extra" fertilized eggs. Typically drugs are administered to induce
super-ovulation -- the release of multiple eggs, not the normal monthly one or
two eggs -- so that the doctors will have more to work with. Not all the
eggs will fertilize. But if six or eight or ten eggs /do/ fertilize, you do not
want to implant them all in the woman's uterus, because the babies will not
survive (and the mother might not either!). Instead, you implant the one or
two that look the healthiest and are growing vigorously, and either discard the
rest or freeze them for use in a later attempt. If at a later date the
couple decide not to use those frozen eggs, and they are thawed and discarded,
Catholics believe that thawing out those embryos is yet another act of
murder, and all the doctors and nurses in the fertility clinic are mass
murderers. We Jews are pro-life but don't agree with the Catholics and
fundamentalist Christians on this. I can sort of see where some poskim might not
like the idea of discarding extra embryos (balls of cells -- do not picture
a baby or even a fetus). But the vast majority do not seem to consider
this a halachic problem AFAIK. When we asked our shailos we were told it
was not a problem. If you need that information I will tell you privately
which posek we asked but since I cannot be certain he would answer every case
the same I don't want to say it here.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>So anyway, not to forget my main point, to my mind sex selection IS
justified for medical reasons, but doing something that is so expensive,
so invasive, and so risky to the mother, is not justified just because G-d
sent you six daughters and you really wanted a son. Love your daughters
and thank G-d for them, and thank Him that you are not one of those childless
Jewish couples who would be ecstatic to have your "problem."</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><B><FONT color=#0000ff>--Toby Katz<BR>=============</FONT><FONT lang=0
size=2 face=Arial FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"></B><BR></FONT><FONT lang=0
size=2 face=Arial FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"><BR><BR><FONT
color=#0000ff>-------------------------------------------------------------------
</FONT>
<DIV></DIV></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px"><FONT
lang=0 color=#0000ff size=2 face=Arial FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2
face=Arial><BR></FONT> </BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>