THE FERTILITY PILL Solomon B. Freehof

QUESTION: In recent years doctors have discovered a medicine in the form of a pill which is given to childless women and helps them to achieve fertility and even multiple births. Is such a pill, which seems to change the physical nature of the woman, permitted by Jewish tradition?( Rabbi Jonathan Brown, Harrisburg , Pennsylvania .)*

ANSWER: The talmudic literature has clear mention of medicines to prevent childbirth. They speak of"the drink of sterility"(kos shel ikrin; Even Haezer 5:12), but I do not remember anywhere in the literature where there is mention of a medicine of the opposite effect, namely, a spur to fertility. Clearly such a medicine was not known to the ancients, since it is based on modern studies of glands and hormones, etc.

As to the general aim of these fertility pills, it is obvious that their purpose is in harmony with one of the central attitudes of Scripture. If there is any one blessing which God promises all through Scripture, it is the blessing of having many children. In Genesis(1:22) even animal nature, the fishes and the birds, are blessed by the Creator and mandated to"increase and multiply and fill the earth." And when Adam and Eve were created(1: 28), they received the same blessing that animal nature had received, to"increase and multiply." The same blessing was given to Noah after the Flood . And when Abraham enters the land of Canaan, God 's blessing to him is that his descendants will be numerous as the stars in heaven and the sands on the seashore(Genesis 22:17). When Jacob leaves home, his father, Isaac, gives him a similar blessing(28:3). In Leviticus 26:9, the awesome chapters of blessings and curses, the people of Israel is promised, if they obey God 's commandment:"I will make thee fruitful and multiply thee."

Of course, it may be argued that these blessings had great meaning in the early days, when our earth was largely empty, but today, with the threat of overpopulation and relatively insufficient food supplies, the old

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