DEVELOPING HALAKHIC ATTITUDES TO SEX PRESELECTION

all, the posgim generally provide authorization to women who are in specific vulnerable categories to use contraceptive spermicides or pills. But those who give consent do so despite the fact that the proper understanding of the pivotal text is disputed, and it is unclear whether the Talmud intends to permit contraception for women who are at risk or not. It follows then that sex preselection aids, which are utilized in a similar fashion, should be acceptable for all couples, given the Talmud 's repeated unambiguous approval of sex preselection for all. There would be no hashchatat zera entailed, nor would there be hotza'at zera levatalah, especially given that conception would be entirely possible within the context of regular marital sexual intercourse. Even while using the spermicide or pill the couple would be continuing in their endeavor to"be fruitful and multiply" and to populate the world. Such spermicides or pills- it could well be expected ­would be found to be unobjectionable from the perspective of a number of traditional arbiters of the oral law.

Within progressive Judaism , on the other hand, even the removal of societal and symbolic concerns would still leave critical issues to be confronted. For one of the central principles of a progressive approach to halakhah is the acknowledgement that halakhah, correctly apprehended, is a changing and developing entity.” This is not to suggest that any change is possible within the halakhah, for several other principles painstakingly restrict the license to change. But it does imply that when wholly new circumstances arise, there is sometimes a need for the reevaluation of conventionally accepted halakhic outlooks in order to provide a legal, ethical, and spiritual framework that can continue to respond appropriately.

The progressive Jew would, in all probability, view contemporary efficient sex preselection procedures as an example of such wholly new conditions. For the mere contemplation of sex preselection methods that could provide an assured outcome was a far-distant fantasy for Bettan in the 1940's, let alone for the sages of the rabbinic era. As a consequence, the halakhic precedents on record all undoubtedly must have assumed that sex preselection methods would always fail sufficiently often to leave

108