DEVELOPING HALAKHIC ATTITUDES TO SEX PRESELECTION Daniel Schiff
The Jewish textual heritage handed down to us reveals that the modern interest in influencing the sex of one's offspring is at least as old as the halakhah itself. While even the theory behind most of the current birth technologies could not have been contemplated two thousand years ago, potential ways to affect the sex of children were discussed in detail. Indeed, though rudimentary techniques for artificial insemination by donor(A.ID.), in vitro fertilization(I.V.F.), or genetic screening could scarcely have been pondered, sex preselection’ was the subject of rich and ingenious proposals. In fact it is reasonable to assert that in Jewish terms the sex preselection debate does not require us to seek tangential antecedents of questionable relevance, for our ancestors seem to have understood well the implications of sex preselection in their day and were able to advocate a variety of "practical" procedures in its pursuit.
It is possible to gain a more complete perspective of the context in which rabbinic thought on these matters evolved by giving some consideration to the range of creative methods for sex preselection that have been promoted in many cultures through much of recorded history. Biological methods, for example, included those of the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras (500 to 428 B.C.E.) who held that males originated from the sperm of the right testicle, and postulated that the left one should be tied off Just prior to copulation.’ Dietetic theories included the advice given to women in the middle ages that if they wanted to bear a boy they should "drink a concoction of wine and lion's blood(in proper proportions) and then copulate under a full moon while an abbot prayed for a boy." Symbolic interventions included such counsel as"a man should take an axe to bed with a woman while singing a prescribed song(Spessart Mountains of Germany ); a young boy should be present in bed during intercourse (Yugoslavia ); and the man should bite the woman's right ear before his orgasm(Italian Province of Modena )."*