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the prostate. 2. Injecting Prostigmine into the spinal cord. In contrast
to the first method where an emission is liable to take place during
treatment, this chemical works between three and eight hours after
its injection into the spinal cord, causing semen to be ejaculated. In
both methods the patient does not feel the emission of semen but
only a little dizziness. The following questions arise:

1. Doesn’t this type of testing involve the prohibition of emitting
semen for naught?

2. Isn’t there a problem in obtaining sperm from the husband to
artificially inseminate his wife?

Dr. Moshe Elyakim Brooks, Consul-
tant in Physical and Rehabilitative
Medicine, Tel Hashomer Hospital

ɳ Response

Obtaining semen from a paraplegic in order to test its fertility is in
one respect more serious than obtaining sperm for therapeutic pur-
poses which some poskim permit2, yet in another respect it is more
lenient.

It is more serious because the purpose of obtaining semen in a
therapeutic context is to cure infertility and enable the patient to pro-
create. This is why some poskim allow it, comparing the semen’s [ap-
parently wasteful] extraction to demolishing a shul in order to rebuild
and improve it, which does not violate the prohibition of destroying a
beis haknesses. In our case however, the semen is not being extracted
in order to heal the patient or to play a part in his cure because that is
impossible. Its sole purpose in this case is to fulfill the request of the
woman who has made this a precondition for marriage. This bears
greater similarity to the case cited in Kovetz Hanesher (Volume XI,
2) of a man who became engaged to his cousin and the authorities
would not let him marry her before he produced a sample of his

2. As explained at length in siman 251.

Semen from a Paraplegic 2 25