Selected Reform Responsa 189

then asks this question of Ben Zoma: If a High Priest had married a virgin but then discovered that, although still a virgin, she is pregnant, what is the status of the child, etc.? Ben Zoma is asked how it was possible that this wife of the High Priest could be pregnant and yet remain a virgin. He said that it was possible that she was impregnated in the bath. Rashi explains this answer as follows: In a public bath place, some male bather had emitted semen, and later this young woman, bathing there too, was impregnated by it.(By the way, a gynecologist has implied to me that this talmudic idea of impregnation without intercourse is quite possible.) This talmudic idea of a woman thus receiving sperms without sexual intercourse is the basis of all the halachic debate on artificial insemination. It will also be the basis of the debate on the question you have raised here.

By the way, Dr. Alexander Guttmann of the College faculty and [ have both written responsa on artificial insemination. They are found in the Conference Year Book, Vol. 62. 1 will mention now only the two latest responsa on the subject, namely, one by the former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Benzion Uziel (in Mishpatei Uziel, Even Hoezer,# 19), and also one by Moses Feinstein , the most honored American Orthodox respon­ dent , in his second volume on Even Hoezer# 11. 1 mention both of these scholars to point out the rather important fact that after perhaps thirty years of Halachic debate, these leading authorities disagree with each other on the basic problem of the child's paternity in artificial insemination. Benzion Uziel is inclined to the opinion that the mother who receives the seed in artificial insemination is the true parent, whereas Moshe Feinstein believes that the donor of the seed in artificial insemination is the true parent. A

It might be worth mentioning that Feinstein ’s decision that itis the donor who is the true parent is not an absolutely firm conviction with him, because, he says, although the donor is to be considered the parent, he is not a parent to the extent that the child born from his donation would free his wife from chalitza. That is to say, if a man dies childless, his wife cannot remarry unless her brother-in-law gives her chalitza, but if her husband has had a child from any woman(even a woman who was not his wife), the wife is freed from chalitza. In other words, Moses Feinstein says that the donor is to be the parent, but not completely so; if he has no other children, his wife must undergo chalitza if he dies.