Post-Mortem Sperm Removal Under Jewish Law

Dr. Mordechai Halperin has posted a thoughtful discussion entitled Post-Mortem Sperm Retrieval.

Here is the doctor’s conclusion:

The default position in Jewish law is permissibility, not prohibition. Post-mortem sperm retrieval’s permissibility depends on two factors. If before his death the man did not explicitly or implicitly agree to have his semen removed after his death for his wife to bear his children, then it is strictly forbidden to do so and there is no halakhic dispensation for performing the procedure. Second, if he did give explicit or implicit consent to the procedure, then the matter may depend on the different opinions among the poseqim and a qualified halakhic authority must be consulted.

Special thanks to Stephen Robertson (May 2008 J.D. Candidate, Texas Tech University School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention in connection with an earlier posting on this blog in which I discussed an Israeli case in which man’s mother won a three-year battle to have another woman impregnated with the son’s sperm which was removed after his death.