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Fertility Treatment for a Mamzer Couple who

are Halachically Married

Question: A Jewish mamzer is married to a Jewish mamzeres or to
a convert and they live together lawfully. They ask the physician for
fertility treatment. Should he provide it, being that perhaps it is for-
bidden to cause a proliferation of mamzerim in Yisrael?

Response: The Shevet Halevi (responsa 7, 197) discusses whether or
not it is permitted to assist a mamzer in finding a permitted mar-
riage partner, for perhaps it is wrong to promote the proliferation of
mamzerim in Yisrael. He cites the Beis Shmuel (Even Ha’ezer, 4:38)
who writes that one should not cause proliferation of mamzerim
and. therefore, a mamzer should not marry a convert, because she is
able to marry a kosher Jew and have kosher offspring. A mamzer or
a mamzeres though, who are not permitted to marry kosher Jews, are
not forbidden to marry each other.

My father-in-law Rav Y.S. Elyashiv zt”l, added that since a mamzer
is obligated in the mitzvah of procreation, it is a mitzvah to match
him up with a mamzeres so that he can fulfill his mitzvah. Although
the Minchas Chinuch (Mitzvah 1) is uncertain whether a mamzer
is obligated to procreate, and the Pri Megadim (Orach Chaim 240,
Mishbetzos 1) is similarly doubtful about this, it is clear to the Yaavetz
that a mamzer is obligated. Accordingly, the physician is also obligat-
ed to treat them for fertility and assist them in fulfilling the mitzvah
of procreation.

This is clear too from the gemara in Sotah (26a) which says that if
a mamzer’s wife was secluded with another man she is made to drink
the bitter Sotah waters [in order to prove her guilt or innocence]. The
gemara asks that this is obvious and answers,“We might have thought
that its preferable [to preserve the status quo and leave her forbidden
to her husband in order] to avoid the proliferation of individuals of
tainted lineage, therefore we are taught that it is not so. Evidently we
are not concerned about swelling the ranks of non-kosher individ-

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