DEVELOPING HALAKHIC ATTITUDES TO SEX PRESELECTION

From the viewpoint of both traditional and progressive Judaism , provided that a couple conforms to the relevant laws and customs of kashrut, niddah, tzniut, inter alia, these two types of strategies would be unlikely to be regarded as improper. There is nothing halakhically unsuitable about altering diet or sexual timing if the existing halakhic boundaries are not transgressed. Neither is there any particular societal or symbolic reason to try to restrict this type of practice, even if such limitations were feasible. Moreover, while the spiritual/philosophic arguments raised in opposition to efficient sex preselection methods might also lead to attempts to dissuade couples from using uncertain procedures, the lack of total surety as to the result of the uncertain methods would tend to blunt the dissenting case.

Ironically, then, it may well be that- at least as far as progressive Jews are concerned- the more efficient a sex preselection method becomes, the less tolerable it becomes. In the final analysis, the problem, it emerges, does not lie in attempting to influence the sex of offspring, the problem lies

in attempting to exert complete control over the outcome. It is a paradoxical conclusion which- it could be imagined- might well have been endorsed by the rabbis of the Talmud , had they ever confronted this permutation of the issue.

Indeed, from a Jewish perspective, this paradox should come as no surprise. For one of the earliest examples of human technological striving that is recorded in the Torah tells of the attempted construction of the Tower of Babel(Genesis 11:1-9). At Babel, the people wanted to demonstrate that their ingenuity had the capacity to reach the level of God , and so they set out to build a tower that would rise to the highest plane of perfection- up to heaven itself. But God , preferring the people to stay within their intended human domain, brings the edifice to a halt by confounding human language and dispersing the people across the face of the earth.