Q&A: Contraception
Contraception
Question
Hello Rabbi. As I understand it (correct me if I’m wrong), there are quite a few rabbis who permit a married couple to use contraception (I’m talking about the pill and the like, not all forms of contraception). I understood that the distinction between the different methods is the question of whether the semen enters the woman’s body or not (threshing inside and scattering outside). That is, when the semen enters the woman’s body—there is no wasting of seed, whereas when the man “scatters outside,” there is wasting of seed. But I don’t really understand this, because in the end, even when the man “scatters inside,” the woman takes pills and the semen goes to waste, so seemingly here too it is wasted seed! I would be happy if you could explain the difference between the two cases. Thank you.
Answer
See, for example, here:
http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/kitveyet/assia/tihnun-2.htm
The distinctions are mainly between a situation in which a fertilized ovum is destroyed (which is like murder or abortion) and preventing fertilization (and they distinguish between an active or passive method, especially methods that are like intercourse at a time when there is no ovulation, or intercourse with a barren woman, and the like).
Normal marital intercourse permits ejaculation that does not result in conception as part of the intercourse. But destruction of semen unrelated to intercourse is, in the view of the halakhic decisors, forbidden.
Discussion on Answer
Correction: Even HaEzer.
So what? I wrote that one must distinguish between destruction and ejaculation in vain within the framework of intercourse.
Your answer says, “Normal marital intercourse permits…”. And I added that it is not דווקא normal intercourse, but any type of intercourse (including contact through the limbs).
According to the Rema (Yoreh De’ah 25), ejaculation is also permitted in atypical intercourse..