EGG IMPLANT 000 | Imamother

southernbubby

Sun, Jul 16 2006, 9:08 am

I just spoke to a Lubavitcher rebbitzen who is the daughter and wife of a Rav who remembers several conversions on pregnant women and all were told that their babies would be born Jewish. There are rabbis who tell women who are planning conversions to wait to conceive until after converting because there is more kedusha for the baby to be conceived in a Jewish way with mikvah and to a Jewish woman. The 3 month wait is to say that the conversion was done for it's own sake and not for the sake of wanting to marry a specific person. The 3 month wait for widows and divorcees is to determine paternity.

southernbubby

Sun, Jul 16 2006, 9:19 am

Amother, we have no doubts about her. The question we are discussing is the Jewish status of a fetus whose origins are non-Jewish.

amother

Sun, Jul 16 2006, 9:34 am

please go back to the original question that I had asked -
their is no conversion involed in this story!
the women was jewish so no conversion is neccessary!
the baby is in question.Is the baby a jew?she was a girl! btw
please start over or someone sumarys all that as said.

Motek

Sun, Jul 16 2006, 11:45 am

amother wrote:

a women was implanted with an egg from a non jewish women
she gave birth to a baby girl!
would consider the baby a jew?

Implanted with a fertilized egg?

here's an article on a related subject and the answers are NOT SIMPLE

http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/refua/ivf.htm

southernbubby

Sun, Jul 16 2006, 12:05 pm

Wow Motek, you are quite a detective! That must me the reason that some rabbis tell the person to reconfirm the conversion at bar or bat mitzvah if the conversion occurred during pregnancy. It is probably similar to adopting and converting a newborn except that the child is born to a Jewish mother so he is related to that mother. According to that article, the Jewish mother with a non-Jewish egg implant would need to convert the baby.

southernbubby

Sun, Jul 16 2006, 2:17 pm

I wanted to add something else. Kohanim cannot marry gerim. Usually people know who gerim are. If a child is adopted, it is known to many people. An egg inplant could be a very well kept secret because the woman who gives birth does not have to share the information that the baby isn't genetically hers or has been converted. It is possible that only the bais din knows. A girl that is born to a non-frum mother, who has not been properly converted, and has not been told about her origins, could end up married to a kohen if she becomes frum. Also, what if the egg donor gives eggs to several women, there would be the possibility of siblings marrying. This could really be a mess to untangle. We would have to hope that someone who conceives this way would not try to keep it a secret.

Crayon210

Sun, Jul 16 2006, 2:23 pm

southernbubby wrote:

Also, what if the egg donor gives eggs to several women, there would be the possibility of siblings marrying.

If the children are Jewish from birth because of the birth mother, they're not siblings.

If the children are Jewish because they convert later, the fact that they are biologically siblings in some way is not problematic, because halachically they aren't siblings (a ger is no longer related to his family, even if the whole family converts).

So this particular problem you bring up (probably the most severe) is not problematic, as far as I understand.

Mama Bear

Sun, Jul 16 2006, 4:13 pm

Ruchel, that child must be converted upon birth. The woman who carries the child is the halachic mother. This makes surrogacy so complicated, and many rabbonim wont touch it with a 10 foot pole!

Yael

Sun, Jul 16 2006, 10:19 pm

I once read somewhere, dont remember where, an article online that discusses this. the main point that I got out of it was that there are 2 things which determine motherhood status. the woman in which the baby was conceived and the woman who gives birth to the baby. both are considered halachikly mothers.
in the case of in vitro there is no mother for conception so whoever gives birth, is the mother.
and surrogacy is a real problem when the egg is conceived in one woman and born from another.
a woman who uses her own egg to conceive in vitro, and gives the fertilized egg to a surrogate mother, the child is halachikly the surrogate's. and is like an adopted child to the biological mother.

Disclaimer: this is just from my memory and I do not claim that it is all halachikly accurate. but it certainly is interesting.

southernbubby

Mon, Jul 17 2006, 9:25 am

Outside of halacha and in the judicial system of many states are codes regarding whose baby it is when a surrogate is hired to gestate a child. Years ago there was that famous case where a surrogate fought in court to keep the baby. It was her egg and the sperm was from the husband of the couple that whe was gestating for. There are probably complex state laws for signing away embroyos or adopting when someone else gestates a baby. Sperm donors are now being asked if they want to meet the many children that they anonymously sired. They have to protect themselves against paternity suits with signatures from the women who are inseminated that the biological father does not want to support his child. Involving donors to provide children for infertile couples has a lot of legal implications.

southernbubby

Tue, Jul 18 2006, 10:49 am

Marybeth Whitehead ended up with joint custody. The poor child, who was conceived to be the Stern's daughter, was shuttled back and forth.