Fertility and Jewish Law
Feminist Perspectives on Orthodox Responsa Literature
9781611682410
Distributed for Brandeis University Press
Fertility and Jewish Law
Feminist Perspectives on Orthodox Responsa Literature
This book presents, from the perspective of feminist jurisprudence and feminist and liberal bioethics, a complete study of Jewish law (halakhah) on contemporary reproductive issues such as birth control, abortion, and assisted fertility. Irshai examines these issues to probe gender-based values that underlie the interpretations and determinations reached by modern practitioners of halakhah. Her primary goal is to tell, through common halakhic tools, a different halakhic story, one that takes account of the female narrative and its missing perspective.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments • Introduction: Epistemology, Jurisprudence, and Halakhah: A Feminist Critique • SEX WITHOUT PROCREATION • “Be Fruitful and Multiply” • Birth Control and Family Planning • Halakhic Rulings on Abortion: A Historical Survey from the Rabbinic to the Modern Period • Abortion in Contemporary Halakhic Rulings • PROCREATION WITHOUT SEX • Artificial Insemination, In Vitro Fertilization, and Surrogacy in Liberal and Radical Feminist Approaches • Artificial Insemination, In Vitro Fertilization, and Surrogacy: Halakhic Analysis • Afterword: The Gender Project in the Philosophy of Halakhah as an Exercise in Criticism • Notes • Bibliography • Index