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A Murderer who wants to Perpetuate Himself

before his Execution

Question: A murderer who was sentenced to death in the state of
Nevada in the United States submitted a request to the prison au-
thorities to allow him to seclude himself with his wife in order to
perpetuate himself, so that his memory should not be lost. The au-
thorities rejected his request, arguing that the state laws prohibit this.

He then requested that they facilitate his request through artificial
insemination. A specialist in Artificial Fertilization was prepared to
fulfill the murderer’s request without payment but he first wanted to
know whether it is ethical to perform fertilization for this murderer
and what view the Torah takes.

Response: It is a mitzvah for the authorities to allow a Jewish
prisoner to be secluded with his wife while he is incarcerated for the
crime of murder and is awaiting execution, for as long as he is alive
he is obligated in mitzvos. If he has not yet fulfilled the mitzvah of
procreation, all other Jews – as guarantors of his mitzvah obligations
– are duty bound to make it possible for him to fulfill this mitzvah.
Although a murderer is imprisoned, this punishment is intended
solely to deprive him of his freedom but not to prevent his fulfilling
the mitzvah of procreation. Marital relations are only forbidden to
a leper, a person under ban and to a mourner [as well as on Yom
Kippur and Tisha B’Av, and when the woman is a niddah] but are not
prohibited to a prisoner.

However, the above does not apply to all prisoners in jail. Rashi in
Pesachim (91a) writes that among the detainees in a prison for Jews
are those who must be forced to divorce their wives [whom they are
obligated to divorce], who must be forced to pay their debts, or who
struck someone else and it is not known whether the victim will sur-
vive, see there. It is logical that in the first two cases, the prisoner will
be deprived of marital life because the purpose of his incarceration
is to pressure him to divorce his wife or to pay his debt. It is logical
that a murderer’s incarceration, which serves as a punishment for

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