JACOB Z. LAUTERBACH

say that even during the period when she is a ketana(i.e., between the age of eleven and twelve), she may have natural intercourse and is not obliged to take any precautions; for the heavenly powers will have mercy and protect her from all danger, as it is said,"The Lord preserveth the simple"(Ps. 116:6). The other teachers evidently did not consider the danger of a minor dying as a result of childbirth so probable. They must have believed that a girl even before the age of puberty could give birth to a living child and survive(comp. Preuss, op. cit., p. 441). But as regards the nursing or the pregnant woman, even the other teachers do not say that she may dispense with this precaution, for we notice that they do not say, Kulan meshameshot veholechot.

The rules of law laid down in this baraita according to our interpretation are, therefore, the following: When there is a danger of harm resulting to the unborn child or the child already born, all teachers agree that it is obligatory to take the precaution of using a contraceptive. According to R. Meir, however, this obligation holds good also in the case when conception might result in danger or harm to the mother. But even if we should understand the baraita to indicate that the other teachers differed with R. Meir in all three cases, it would still only follow, as Luria correctly points out, that in all three cases we decide the halakhah according to the Hakhamim and do not make it obligatory upon these thre¢ women to take the precaution of using contraceptives; the rule indicated by the baraita would still teach us that, according to the opinion of all the teachers, it is not forbidden to use a contraceptive in cases where conception would bring harm either to the mother or to the child born or unborn. And I cannot see any difference between the protection of a minor from a conception which might prove fatal to her and the protection of a grown-up woman whose health is, according to the opinion of physicians, such that a pregnancy might be fatal to her. Neither can I see any difference between protecting a child from the danger of being deprived of the nourishment of its mother's milk, and protecting the already born children of the family from the harm which might come to them due to the competition of a larger number of sisters and brothers. For the care and the comfort which the parents can give their children already born will certainly be less if there be added to the family other children claiming attention, care, and comfort.

181