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primarily as its mother’s offspring not its father’s, because the father‘s
role is an indirect one. [This is indeed the halachah when a gentile has
relations with a Jewess, or a Jew has relations with a gentile woman
– in both cases the fetus follows the mother’s lineage (Even Ha’ezer
4:18).] However, the Torah decrees that [among Jews,] lineage runs,
“according to their families, following their fathers’ family” (Bamidbar
1:2) meaning that a child follows its father’s lineage. Possibly, this will
only be the case with a child whose birth results from intercourse,
when the woman is viewed as one of her husband’s limbs [i.e. as an
extension of him], regarding which Chazal say, “A man’s wife is like
part of his own body.” This is explained in the Raavad’s introduction
to the sefer Baalei Hanefesh. The Raavad writes that because individ-
ual animals are separate entities, the female animal was not created
from one of the male’s bones. When it came to mankind, however,
Hakadosh baruch Hu created woman from one of man’s bones,
so that she should be considered one of his organs. It is therefore
possible that only when a child is born as the result of the male and
the female bonding together as one body does its lineage follow the
father, for the woman is considered a part of her husband. This is not
the case when the child is born as a result of impregnation in a bath-
tub [or of artificial insemination], for there is then no bond between
the woman and her husband. The husband is then only considered an
indirect cause of the fetus’ formation. This is why there are opinions
that do not regard a child born as a result of artificial insemination to
be its father’s child.

ɳ Summary and Conclusions

In view of the doubts expressed by the leading poskim as to whether
the offspring of a bathtub impregnation and in our case, of artificial
insemination, is related to its father:

1. If the father is a Kohen, owing to this doubt the son cannot
redeem a firstborn son nor raise his hands in Birkas Ko-
hanim, nor may he eat terumah.

8 1 Medical-Halachic Responsa of Rav Zilberstein