Wahrman: Brave New Judaism page i BRAVE NEW JUDAISM Wahrman: Brave New Judaism page iiblank Wahrman: Brave New Judaism page iii BRAVE NEW JUDAISM When Science and Scripture Collide * MIRYAM Z. WAHRMAN Brandeis University Press Published by University Press of New England Hanover and London Wahrman: Brave New Judaism page iv Brandeis University Press Published by University Press of New England, One Court St., Lebanon, NH 03766 © 2002 by Brandeis University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 54321 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wahrman, Miryam Z. Brave new Judaism : when science and scripture collide / Miryam Z. Wahrman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 1–58465–031–1 1. Judaism and science. 2. Bioethics—Religious aspects—Judaism. 3. Cloning—Religious aspects—Judaism. 4. Medicine—Religious aspects—Judaism. 5. Technology and Jewish law. I. Title. bm538.s3 w34 2002 296.3'4957—dc21 2002004930 Wahrman: Brave New Judaism page v With deepest love and gratitude to: Israel, Abby, and Susie Wahrman and Zev Zahavy And in loving memory of: Edith Zahavy, z"l Wahrman: Brave New Judaism page viblank Wahrman: Brave New Judaism page vii Contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xvii Chapter 1 Introduction: Bioethics and the Jewish Spectrum 1 Chapter 2 Fruit of the Womb 24 Chapter 3 Be Fruitful and Multiply: Male Infertility 37 Chapter 4 Embryonic Stem Cells: When Does Life Begin? 53 Chapter 5 Bone of My Bones and Flesh of My Flesh: Human Cloning 65 Chapter 6 The Seven Deadly Diseases 87 Chapter 7 Designer Genes, Designer Kids 109 Chapter 8 Chosen Children: Sex Selection 126 Chapter 9 TAG A CAT: Jewish Genes and Genealogy 141 Chapter 10 Judging Genes 166 Chapter 11 Kosher Pork: Brave New Animals 187 Chapter 12 Treife Tomatoes: Brave New Plants 209 Chapter 13 When Science and Scripture Collide 227 Notes 239 Selected Bibliography 265 Index 277 Wahrman: Brave New Judaism page viiiblank Wahrman: Brave New Judaism page ix Preface Staying Alive They say there are no atheists in foxholes. I say there are no atheists in ICUs. Not even the doctors . especially not the doctors. “Your mother’s getting better.” Those four words meant the world to me after my mother had gone through her fifth serious operation in a span of two weeks. When my mother was seriously ill, I learned for the first time how strong the will to live can be. Mom went through operation after operation, and kept fighting back. And watching my mother struggle to breathe, to eat, to communicate, made me want to fight as hard as I could to get the medical care needed to keep her alive—and to help her get better. Her will to live was so strong that she was able to overcome many challenges: an endartectomy (clearing out the artery to the brain), a quintuple bypass, a pacemaker, two major surgeries on her intestines, plastic surgery on her chest muscles. Unable to speak because of a tracheostomy, she would hold up her fin- gers counting the surgeries—four, five, six . “They perform miracles here every day,” asserted my brother, after my mother pulled through another operation. And, indeed, it seemed as if medical miracles would lead to her recovery. For month after month in the intensive care unit doctors and nurses shook their heads in wonderment as she recovered time after time. Sophisticated medi- cal science and technology kept her alive for month after month. And when my mother died, succumbing to an infection after her al- most six-month struggle, it was difficult to ascertain for sure when life had ended, because of all the technology keeping her alive. As I watched the heart monitor, the peaks and valleys on the screen were replaced by a flat line, broken by an occasional blip. Even in death, the pacemaker continued its work, futilely attempting to regulate a no longer functioning heart. Her lungs continued to inflate and deflate, due to the ventilator attached to her throat (that machine had kept one line short Wahrman: Brave New Judaism page x x Preface her alive for more than five months). The whole scene was surreal, sinking into my consciousness only slowly. It was part daytime soap opera and part confusing and crushing tragedy. Moments later when my father walked into the hospital room he asked, “but how is she gone, if she’s still breathing?” Her heart had indeed stopped even though the machines kept going. The machines attached to her lifeless body were finally turned off—and they stopped their beeping and humming. I stroked her hand and gently closed her eyes. The drive to stay alive may be partially intellectual and rational. But mostly it’s emotional, and sometimes even irrational. This drive has helped people survive life-threatening crises throughout the ages. And this drive to stay alive, or to protect a loved one from death, has led to many conundrums in the application of modern biomedical science. The Drive to Reproduce On the other side of the coin is the irrational, emotional, almost irre- sistible urge to reproduce. The most obvious evidence of this drive is the significant role sex plays in human life. Another manifestation of this drive to reproduce is the ticking of a so-called “biological clock” in older women. The desire to reproduce can lead to feelings of des- peration in childless couples who have experienced years of infertility. The need and desire to conceive has also led to the development of new technologies and ultimately, to many bioethical dilemmas. As a childless couple in the 1980s, my husband and I were privy to all the latest developments in infertility research. The year 1978 had seen the birth of the first test-tube baby, Louise Brown. In the early 80s I was working in that fledgling field and was involved in setting up the first in vitro fertilization (IVF) lab in New York. Our IVF team succeeded in producing the first test-tube baby in the state (born in 1984). It was an exciting and heady time—it seemed as if the team were producing miracle babies, and at the same time we were chal- lenged with a multitude of ethical questions that were novel and daunting. Ironically, although I was working in the field, the feat of conception eluded us as a couple, so we elected to address our infertil- ity problem by undergoing tests, and even some new procedures. one line short Wahrman: Brave New Judaism page xi Preface xi We eventually conceived—the natural way—but we always consid- ered our daughters miracle babies even though technology was not part of the process (aren’t all conceptions miracles anyway?). If neces- sary, would we have resorted to the still experimental procedures I used in the lab? We never had to answer that question, but many, many desperate couples do. Now, more than fifteen years later, technology has continued to progress and the ethical questions are even more complex. Some re- productive options are so unusual that they border on the bizarre. Embryos can now be frozen and donated. There are women over the age of sixty conceiving babies from donor eggs; there are men who don’t produce mature sperm becoming biological fathers; there are grandmothers who carry their own grandchildren in utero . the list goes on and on. And of course there’s plain old IVF where Mom pro- vides the eggs and Dad provides the sperm; the gametes meet in a dish, and the embryos end up back in Mom, who eventually gives birth to her own genetic child. This type of IVF produces more than 15,000 babies a year and it is considered quite routine. How far should a couple be willing to go to have their own biolog- ical child? How much money should they spend? How much pain should they endure? (And it’s not just the mother who may suffer in this type of parenting. Men of low fertility who opt for needle aspira- tion of sperm from the testis endure a painful process. I would guess that Lamaze breathing wouldn’t help much in this procedure.) On an almost daily basis we are exposed to reports in the media of amazing advances in biotechnology and biomedical sciences: the clon- ing of animals; sequencing of genes; new reproductive technologies; tests for defective genes; embryonic stem cell research; and develop- ment of genetically engineered food—to name just a few. We can react to these unprecedented developments on many different levels. From a practical perspective, we could ask: “how will these technological developments affect us?” From an emotional perspective we might ask: “am I ready to accept cloned people? Can I handle the knowledge about genetic defects in myself or my unborn baby?” From an ethical perspective we could wonder: “Is it ethical to know these things . or to perform such procedures?” Religious and secular ethical systems and codes of behavior have evolved to help people deal with all sorts of decisions. one line short Wahrman: Brave New Judaism page xii xii Preface Bioethical Issues Addressed by This Book Brave New Judaism addresses how Judaism, an ancient religion, inter- prets and responds to recent advances in biotechnology and biomedi- cal science. Compelling and unprecedented advances in biotechnology and biomedical sciences have presented society with baffling choices. What genetic diseases should we screen for in our unborn children? How far should an infertile couple go in their quest for a child? Should we be cloning humans? What is the status of a baby who was gestated outside of the womb? Should a woman have her breasts removed if she carries the breast cancer genes? Should we produce and eat bioengi- neered food? Should we use gene studies to define who is a Kohen (priest)? Jewish analysis of and reactions to these issues will help guide Jewish life in the future.