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have the properties of a normal male organ it can be assumed that it
is an ordinary fleshy appendage and the child is a female.



A Woman for Whom the Physicians Fashioned

an Artificial Vagina

Question: There was a case of a woman who had neither a uterus
nor a vagina, though she had ovaries and normal hormones like a
woman. The physicians fashioned an artificial vagina for her and she
came to ask whether she is allowed to get married [after informing
her prospective husband that she is unable to have children, so that
the marriage will not be contracted under a mistaken assumption] or
whether her husband would be violating the prohibition of emitting
semen for naught [during intercourse], since her vagina was not a
natural one?

Response: Now, the fact that this woman has no uterus does not
render intercourse with her forbidden, since her husband has rela-
tions with her in the normal way. So it seems from maseches Kesuvos
(60b) where it says that after her husband’s death a woman must
wait three months before remarrying [for ‘discernment’ i.e. to see if
she is pregnant so that we know whether a subsequent child is from
the first or from the second husband]. Even women who clearly did
not become pregnant from their first husband are required to wait
three months. Of those women we learn, “she was barren, elderly or
infertile…and unable to have a child.” Rashi explains that “unable to
have a child” refers to a woman whose uterus has been removed. Such
a woman is clearly allowed to have marital relations with her because
after the three months have passed she can remarry.

This is the answer given by the Igros Moshe (Even Ha’ezer 1, 66),
regarding the case of a woman whose physicians decided that her
uterus had to be removed on account of a growth in her abdomen.

166 1 Medical-Halachic Responsa of Rav Zilberstein