Multiplying Technology: The Jewish Ethics of IVF

God's first command to the first human beings was p'ru, u'r'vu, "be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:28); make more. However, when the Torah was written, the understanding of human procreation was limited. On the simplest level, the Torah seems to recognize just two human gender identities (the Talmud would later expand that to six or seven) and that the sexual union of two "opposite" gendered humans could generate a new human. This process of procreation was understood very elementally by early Jewish Sages. In Niddah31a, the Talmud recounts:

The Sages taught: There are three partners in the creation of a person: The Holy One, Blessed be God, the father, and the mother. The father emits the white seed, from which the following body parts are formed: The bones, the sinews, the nails, the brain, and the white of the eye. The mother emits red seed, from which are formed the skin, the flesh, the hair, and the black of the eye. And the Holy One, Blessed be God, inserts a spirit, a soul, the countenance, eyesight, hearing of the ear, the capability of speech of the mouth, the capability of walking with the legs, understanding, and wisdom.

This understanding of partners' roles in generating offspring held for centuries in Jewish religious thought. Though medically inaccurate, the enduring value of the teaching is in its assertion of the spiritual partnership inherent in linking Creator and creation.

Today, medical science and technological advancements have engendered a once-unimaginable array of tools for procreation. We now have IVF-ET, embryonic surgeries, genetic therapy and engineering, and more, empowering would-be parents of all genders in their ambitions to bear children. These technologies redefine the beginning of life and pose ethical questions about when and how life begins. For instance, do genetic screening and intervention border on eugenics, with individuals filtering embryos to create a "desirable" outcome? Questions like this are pondered by rabbinic medical ethicists, physicians, and those seeking to build families. How do Creator and creation connect in these circumstances?

As technology further advances, people today find new challenges to balancing the spiritual and the technological as they pursue family planning. Questions which may complicate matters include the impact of genetic mutations, the potential for cancer, fertility timelines, and more. Does genetic therapy impact the spiritual status of a fetus? Is procreation no longer a miraculous wonder, but a series of intentional, dispassionate choices?

In Jewish life, our texts clearly distinguish between the role of the Creator, namely God, and creation, including humanity. Although in the Genesis mythologies, humanity was fashioned just a little lower than the angels, we are not privy to the Divine precinct; we live in the human domain. Even though our technological innovations expand that realm, we nevertheless remain in the world.

The Tower of Babel makes that clear. The first joint human exercise described in Torah was building a tower to the heavens, ostensibly to trespass on God's plane. It failed. We were to remain in the human world. Even though we have proven adept at pushing the boundaries of that world, we are still anchored in this place. We will always be the creation.

Many people view the imperative to create more humans as the first Divine command and have often interpreted this to include chosen family, birth family, adoption, surrogacy, IVF, etc. Whenever people welcome a new human into their lives, they touch that which is holy. Many parents experience that initial encounter with a child and feel that it transcends the human universe, allowing them to experience the godly, holy moment of Creation. We leave the bounds of human existence and experience the wonder of Creation, Ma'aseh B'reishit. In birth, the creation becomes the Creator!

Throughout the ages, humans have sought to capture that opportunity. Some used incantations, spells, clay, and soil as they endeavored to replicate God making Adam and Eve. The golems of the Talmud and Rabbi Loew's Prague, albeit fictional, reflect that drive, but each concluded with failure as the anthropoid threatened to run amok. Today, efforts at cloning follow similar trajectories: sheep, lower primates, horses, and dogs have been created from various permutations of donated cells and wombs. Yet human cloning is still beyond reach both technically and, maybe, ethically. However, as it is imaginable, human cloning offers the ultimate possibility in linking the human and Divine, Creator and creation.

This exciting dialogue is personal and intimate to families, seductive to futurists, compelling to ethicists, and stirring to rabbis. It will continue as long as we have love, yearning, imagination, and the first commandment: "be fruitful and multiply."