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in the above case was claiming in beis din, the man will not have to
pay because she may have become pregnant through artificial [donor]
insemination, which is no contradiction to our presumption of the
woman’s kashrus but on the other hand, will negate any obligation of
child support since it is possible that the child is not his. Nowadays,
it is also possible to contemplate the possibility of children having
been switched in the hospital, rendering both the child kosher and
the woman righteous while absolving the father from having to pay
support.

I heard from a great Torah scholar that in our case too, according
to the opinion of the Chelkas Mechokek the child cannot be assumed
kosher unless the mother is asked and says that the child is kosher
and that she became pregnant from her husband – just as we cannot
rely on the possibility of the husband’s having come and gone in the
space of a single night [in the case mentioned in the Shulchan Aruch,
of a birth twelve months after the husband’s departure] unless the
woman says that this is what happened.

It appears to me though, that in our case even if the mother is not
asked the child will still be considered kosher because only when a
the fetus supposedly remained in the womb for over twelve months
must we ask the woman and hear what she says. If she says that she
was pregnant with the child for over twelve months, we will conclude
that the child is a mamzer according to the Rambam, who declares
this an impossibility, so we therefore need to hear what she has to
say. Only if she reveals that her husband came during those twelve
months by invoking Hashem’s Name or that he came and went in the
space of one night will we declare the child kosher. In the case under
consideration however, the woman need reveal nothing new in order
to enable us to declare the child kosher besides telling us that the tests
were inaccurate, which we can say on our own.



118 1 Medical-Halachic Responsa of Rav Zilberstein