What is the Jewish perspective on genetic sex selection of children? Would the latitude (if any) given to genetically select against diseases apply to selecting for desired properties like intelligence or height?
Pre-conception gender selection is now available in the medical marketplace. Gender selection is not a Jewish practice save for in a very few, case-by-case, determinations related to preventing the transmission of several horrific genetic diseases that are only carried and manifested, as it happens, by males. The method of choice is to do IVF—combine a sperm and egg outside of the womb—and then use PDG—a method of assessing the resulting zygote before it reaches the stage of becoming an implantable embryo (which is when the maternal and paternal gene pools combine).
In the absence of a major health issue, selection for gender, intelligence, height, athletic prowess, eye or hair color or other attributes that may become elective as technologies develop, fall outside the domain of Jewish values and practice. None of these are illnesses or diseases. Judaism values those who are different and provides a blessing to say upon viewing a person who looks unusual, the core of which is "mishaneh habriyot—for the diversity of living beings". Gender, our main topic here, we now know, spans a spectrum of possibilities. This has become well documented and far better appreciated in our times than in antiquity. In Western cultures and many others, prejudicial hiring, healthcare, education, etc. based upon gender preferences or differences is now illegal. In the Torah itself, we learn of how the midwives risk their own lives rather than following the pharaoh's decree for them to murder newborn Israelite males.
The Talmud, in Tractate Niddah 31, relates a folk tradition for how to ensure a conception will result in a male or female. Many ancient and Middle Eastern cultures have a strong preference for a male first-born. Such ancient biases when manifested in the 21st century are no longer tolerable. Gender selection has already been proven foolhardy, creating imbalances widely reported to be the case in China. There is also a Jewish tradition of trying for at least one boy and one girl that some elect to follow through natural methods of reproduction. This tradition gives absolutely no justification for seeking out gender selection technologies; natural approaches to reproduction are a fundamental mitzvah to be interfered with only when infertility issues produce the need for medical intervention. IVF is not a benign procedure for women, there are risks that make it appropriate only when infertility or serious genetic diseases are involved.
Acceptance is a difficult and important spiritual practice evident in all traditions. The Book of Proverbs teaches: "Who is happy? One who is happy with what one has. Ultimately, for differences among humans such as advanced intelligence, significant height, preferred eye color, or other designer baby issues, Judaism would ask us to resist genetic meddling, for all are created b'zelem elohim—in the image of God. Given that we are not privy to how creation manages to attain homeostasis, we need to be gentle and live in yirah—respectful awe of Nature's ways. The Torah teaches that we are not to be destructive of nature, for there is no divine intervention available to set it aright again.
Our blessed differences help us to learn and live with compassion. In Jewish tradition souls do not accrue a good name, a keter shem tov, based on their degree of health or physical appearance, but rather upon how we each live mitzvah-centered lives. Diverting expensive medical resources to secure medically unnecessary elective characteristics in our progeny is not a mitzvah, ensuring the equal availability of resources to prevent and treat significant illness and disease most definitely is.
What is the Jewish perspective on genetic sex selection of children? Would the latitude (if any) given to genetically select against diseases apply to selecting for desired properties like intelligence or height?
First, a disclaimer: While questions such as this one can be reflected upon and analyzed philosophically and Halachically, when it comes to actually applying such thinking to an individual, specific case, those who are wrestling with the issue should consult with a Rabbinical expert, familiar with both the Halacha as well as the medical considerations. Each situation is unique and involves its own array of variables and realities. Consequently an authoritative answer that is given in one case may have no bearing on what applies to a different case, it being impossible to generalize with respect to practical situations.
Genetic testing prior to marriage, accompanied by measures to assure that the identities of individuals found to have genetic incompatibility are safeguarded in order to avoid social stigmatization, has gained widespread acceptance, even in the very observant Jewish community.[1] Having to raise children that potentially may suffer from devastating diseases due to the genetic make-up of their parents has been deemed to be destructive both to the family as well as the community in general. Therefore, if such potential conditions can be anticipated by means of testing before two individuals marry, it is proper to do so.
However, once conception takes place, electively aborting a fetus when there is no objective risk to the mother’s health becomes problematic since we would be ending the potential life of another human being already in formation. As long as the fetus is within the mother, it is considered an extension of the mother’s body, and just as any organ threatening the mother’s life can be excised for the good of the already independently functioning person, the fetus could be eliminated under such circumstances as well. Whereas objective threats to life are more widely accepted as legitimate reasons to abort, ideally within the first forty days after conception, attempting to demonstrate that the mother’s health, and even life, is threatened psychologically, i.e., there is a danger of deep depression if not suicide were she to bring such a fetus to term, is more difficult to ascertain in an objective manner, and therefore in some circles this would not constitute sufficient cause to abort a fetus found to have potentially serious physical and/or cognitive difficulties.
The issue of genetic selection arises not only in cases where abortion would be employed, but also where multiple embryos are created outside the body of the mother, and then evaluated for future implantation. While discarding such an embryo would not appear to qualify as abortion per se, moral and ethical dilemmas nevertheless arise, particularly when engaging in judgments as to which embryos to bring to term and which to ignore.
Selecting, and, by implication, eliminating an entirely healthy fetus or embryo merely because it is deemed lacking characteristics desired by parents such as extraordinary intelligence or a certain predetermined height, would be considered at best frivolous, and at worst callous and disrespectful with respect to the miracle of reproduction and bringing new life into the world. Furthermore, making such a decision suggests an insistence upon the exercise of personal control on the part of a parent independent of God’s Will to an inordinate extent. Among other concerns is a potential ever-increasing gap between the children of those individuals who can afford themselves of expensive medical interventions and those unable to do so. Not only must concerns affecting an individual family unit be considered, but also how will overall society be ultimately impacted by making such technology ubiquitously available not only for those who are in desperate need of it, e.g., the infertile, but for everyone.
Within it, he discusses a range of issues, including the questions at hand. His conclusions include:
“A couple at an increased genetic risk of bearing a child with a genetic or chromosomal disorder
may employ PGD when all the following criteria are met:
a) the child will very likely manifest the disease should it be carried to term
b) the disease is fatal or associated with a severely debilitating condition
c) the disease has no effective therapies at present. “
and on our subject:
“PGD for other purposes such as to select the sex of a child or to choose other traits is not
permitted. “ (Ibid.)
The simple answer is that the Jewish perspective on genetic sex selection of children is a violation of halacha and morally unacceptable. The National Institute of Health has a paper discussing two very specific cases where Orthodox rabbis did allow for sex selection (both in cases where a sperm donor was required). (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3455094/). As a Conservative Rabbi, neither of those cases would allow for permission in my view, yet that is because I have a difference of opinion with the cited rabbis and couples on their need for sex selection in the first place!
No latitude given to select against terminal genetic diseases would allow for selecting properties such as intelligence or height.
As I opened, this is a complex issue and deserves specific attention to a specific case. There are other values at play that would allow for broader permission knowing the circumstances of the questioner. For example, Rabbi Avram Israel Reisner of the CJLS offered an “ideological dissent” from Rabbi Popovsky’s paper, arguing that more considerations should be allowed and would allow for a broader allowability of disease avoidance and trait selection.
While the codes of Jewish law are helpful in this query, the case is even more important. Thus a clear no to an internet query might be turn into a yes, if the details were hashed out.
Few questions are more pressing than those surrounding the world of genetic choice and modification. By definition it was a world the rabbis who wrote the Talmud and classic responsa knew nothing about and therefore current Jewish perspectives about it are still in formation. The authors of the CCAR responsa 5768.3 write that ,
Judaism permits us to exercise our technological power over the natural environment, but it also asks us to place appropriate limits upon that power.
In other words, there are situations in which our growing knowledge of genetics can be applied aggressively but others where we should refrain from acting. In particular, where it is a therapeutic response to a disease we should consider employing it. But when the goals is one of enhancement (intelligence or height) or family preference (sex of a child) we should not use genetic options.
Continuing on with Response 5768.3, we read,
We should emphasize that this is not a firm “no” to any and every application of these technologies for ends that are not strictly speaking medical. We recognize that there may be non-medical applications for human genetic enhancement that, when we consider each case on the basis of its own merits, will strike us as legitimate and compelling. We speak here rather of general tendencies: when the aim of genetic enhancement is not to fulfill the mitzvah o pikuach nefesh (saving a life), the “causes for concern” that we have raised would correspondingly become more urgent and predominant in our thinking.
While Reform Judaism is open to modern innovations and their possibilities to increase the presence of kiddusha, of holiness, in our lives, there is good reason to be cautious in our embrace of genetic selection or modification when it moves beyond the realm of saving a human life or directly improving someone’s health. From a Reform Jewish perspective, selecting for any of gender, enhanced appearance or appeal, or greater intelligence, should give us pause.
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