THE PATERNITY OF AN INFERTILE MALE

producing cells that are destroyed by body heat. Therefore, men with undescended testes will undergo normal puberty even if the testes remain in the abdominal cavity into adult life. It is unlikely that undescended testes that have not appeared by the age of two years will spontaneously appear and descend into the scrotal sac. An individual with this disorder usually has a normal penis and masculine secondary characteristics and would not have been considered by the sages as a seris hamah.

23. Impotency , i.e. an inability to have a penile erection, is not a cause for infertility. The cases of testosterone 5 alpha-reductase deficiency essentially have a penis of insignificant size. They are, nevertheless, able to lay their sperm at the entrance of the vagina, which can then"swim" up the female genital tract to fertilize the ovum. See M.M. Grumbach, F.A. Conte,"Disorders of sex differentiation”, in J.D. Wilson, D.W. Foster(eds.) Williams' Textbook of Endocrinology, 8th edition, 1992: 853-951.

24. See supra note 16. 25. See supra notes 8 and 9.

26. We have seen that one suffering from Testosterone 5 alpha-reductase deficiency may later acquire some of the normal masculine characteristics, such as public hair and a male voice, which are essential in the halakhah in determining that one is a normal male. Unfortunately, for Abraham Nahum and his family, as well as for the modern researcher, he was not examined by the first bet din, which may well have discovered these characteristics. This probably would have changed the lives of the entire family. See J. Barth and M. Zemer,"Jewish Medical Ethics," Assia, Vol I no. 2, 1995. See J. Barth and M. Zemer,"The Congenital Eunuch" in Jewish Medical Ethics(Assia), Vol. I1, no. 2, 1995.