embryonic form for millennia. The early Jewish discussions were also limited and sometimes quasi halakhic or aggadic. The late nineteenth century changed all that and the twentieth century has brought more drastic changes.

This volume does not pretend to look at each of these questions in detail but we have viewed some of them thoroughly through essays or responsa. This volume should be seen as an effort to move the discussion along and to look seriously at a selected set of issues. Other problems connected with fertility, the fetus, demography, and related subjects, will be discussed in future volumes.