Fertility treatment comes with many questions and decisions. For those who care to follow Jewish law, there's the added element of making sure everything about the treatment follows halacha. In general, my husband and I feel confident enough in our education to make informed decisions with regard to halacha. There are times, however, that either we don't agree on an outcome or we've reached a point where we recognize that it's beyond our knowledge. At that point we ask the Rabbi for some halachic guidance.
In this particular case, we had two questions related to IVF that we couldn't agree on* and wanted the Rabbi's input. The two questions were:
- Do we need to have supervision for the embryos as is suggested by some?
- Are we allowed to violate Shabbat for IVF treatment, specifically for the egg retrieval surgery and for shots and monitoring?
The idea behind having a certified supervisor (aka mashgiach), according to some, is that in order to establish lineage without any doubt, some claim there needs to be a third party supervisor to watch over the eggs/embryos from the time of the egg retrieval until they are put back in at the transfer to ensure that there was no mixing up of the sperm, eggs, or embryos at any point. I was very uncomfortable with the idea of having a "supervisor" having access to the embryos. The clinic we use not only has a professional lab with trained embryologists, but they also have so many checks and balances specifically to avoid this very issue. Forget Jewish lineage issues, they are scared of malpractice lawsuits! It's in their best interests to keep everyone's reproductive material clearly labeled and not mixed up.
Before sharing what the Rabbi told us, let me clarify each of our positions. I didn't think there was even a question. I don't see the need for halachic supervision - I trust the clinic and mistakes can happen even with an added random person there watching (would they even know if a mistake was made?). I didn't think it was necessary. Not only is it an added cost but in my opinion it's entirely superfluous and possibly hazardous. With regard to Shabbat, I didn't think there was a question there either. Everything about the treatment is time sensitive so if the egg retrieval needs to happen on Shabbat it's not ideal but it's still going to happen. I'm not going to bust a cycle because of timing, there's just too much at stake! To make things interesting, my husband did not entirely agree with me. He found conflicting texts regarding the halachic supervision and didn't know who believe. In addition, it didn't sit right with him to violate the laws of Shabbat for something that is not technically life threatening.
For the sake of shalom bayit, we agreed to look into it. Specifically, I agreed to bend just enough to hear more information. I was vehemently against having a halachic supervisor or postponing for Shabbat. While I was confident in my position, I didn't want to have issues in the future (someone second guessing my child's heritage?) and I was willing to admit that there's a very small chance I was wrong and didn't want to deal with the repercussions for our future kids if that was the case. Mainly because we had the time (this conversation was sparked shortly after our last failed cycle so there was plenty of time to wait for the new year and new insurance to kick in), we agreed to look into it so we can have more information. I contacted an organization in New York to ask questions about the halachic supervision. They were unable to answer any of my questions. In fact, they were surprised I even had questions - they were ready to take my credit card. I was very unhappy with the conversations I had with multiple people there. This organization inspired zero confidence and I was completely turned off by them. Then I took a step back and made an appointment with the Rabbi - let's see if this was even necessary.
The meeting with the Rabbi was brief. I shared our questions and the Rabbi asked two follow up questions: where our treatment will be taking place and whether we already have children. His answer to our first question was that no halachic supervision is necessary. The reasoning he gave was that it was a trusted clinic with advanced technology which makes an added person unnecessary. He said that halachic supervision is something that is done in Israel but many poskim have ruled that it is not necessary in the USA.
As for the second question about Shabbat, the answer was simply that if it was possible to work it out that the retrieval will be on any other day then that is preferable. If it absolutely has to be on Shabbat, then it's preferable to stay nearby and walk to the clinic or have a non-Jew drive us there/back so that we ourselves are not violating any of the Shabbat prohibitions. Long story short, it is permissible to have treatment on Shabbat. When I asked the part about it not being pikuach nefesh, the Rabbi said that there is leniency with regard to laws that are derabanan vs those that are d'orita, especially since we don't have children yet and this is to fulfill the mitzvah of p'ru u'rvu. In other words, we can have things done on our behalf as long as we're not violating Shabbat ourselves. With regard to shots and monitoring, it was the same idea: preferable to work around Shabbat if possible, and if it needs to be on Shabbat that it's preferable to have someone else do it for you.
Both my husband and I are satisfied with these answers. I'm also happy with the outcome - not only did we look into it but basically nothing is different. Actually, one thing was different: the Rabbi gave us a blessing that the treatment should be successful :)
*For the record, our first two cycles did not have supervision and luckily the ERs did not end up on Shabbat. Once we got the second negative beta we did more research and came across the supervision issue which is what sparked the conversations.
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