228 Selected Reform Responsa

PREDETERMINATION OF SEX 1941

QUESTION: A writer in leading magazines has submitted a question to me. She is preparing a manuscript that will include the attitudes of the various faiths toward predetermination of sex in babies. She says: “As the aim of scientific predetermination is not to limit families in any way, but to increase their happiness through having the sex they most desire, what does your group think on the subject?”

ANSWER: The question posed in the above statement, while avowedly premature, is not impertinent. In fact, the question is not as new as it sounds. The Rabbis of the Talmudic period gave some thought to it. They even sought to prescribe methods whereby nature, in such cases, might be guided to predetermined ends. Those were the days when parents showed undisguised elation over the birth of a male child, and accepted with due resignation the arrival of a female child Rabbi Chiya Rabba, a Tannaitic teacher of the second century, in animadverting upon this parental preference, spoke rather approvingly of it.“There is need for wheat,” he said,“and there is need for barley” (Gen. R. 26.6). Accordingly, some teachers endeavored to advise parents what to do in order to achieve the desired result. Rabbi Eleazar is reported to have recommended generosity to the poor as the best method, Rabbi Joshua, with a keener sense of the relevant, thought that when the husband aimed to predispose his wife for the act of cohabitation, male progeny would ensue:“Mah ya-esh adam veyihyu lo banim zekharim? Rabbi Eliezer omer : Yefazer me-otav la-aniyim. Rabbi Yehoshua omer: Yesamah ishto lidvar mitzvah.”

Other teachers thought that by the mere process of retarded ejaculation on the part of the husband, thus inducing the wife to reach the climax first, the birth of a male child would be ensured. Thus, a Babylonian Amora of the third century, Rabbi Kattina , boldly asserted that he had mastered the art of coition that would yield him only male