Q&A: Spaying a Female Dog
Spaying a Female Dog
Question
In the Rabbi’s view, is it permitted to spay a female dog in order to prevent future animal suffering for her and for her puppies?
See the discussion here
https://www.dogslife.org.il/3432-2/3741-2/
Thank you.
Answer
It is commonly said that this is permitted only through a non-Jew. The consideration of future animal suffering is problematic from several angles. First, this is preventing suffering to a creature that has not yet been born, and therefore at present there is no obligation toward it (similar to the issue of “wrongful birth”; search online here in general). Second, at the moment there is still no suffering, so it is difficult to permit prohibitions on that basis. Third, sterilizing this particular creature harms it for the sake of future creatures. Fourth, it is not clear that the offspring of the dog or female dog that we are sterilizing will in fact suffer. This is a general public consideration, not an individual one. True, the categorical imperative tells us that such a collective consideration is correct and certainly legitimate, even if with respect to this particular dog it is not relevant. See columns 122, 342, 344.
There is also room to discuss whether this prohibition is due to animal suffering (the pain the action causes the animal), in which case it would seem that fundamentally there is no prohibition here, since today this can be done without significant suffering. And even if the prohibition is based on reasoning in the spirit of “He formed it to be inhabited,” meaning to let the world develop as the Holy One, blessed be He, intends, here too it seems there is definitely room to be lenient. True, we do not generally derive law from the reason for a verse, but that applies only to prohibitions that are written explicitly, and in the case of animal suffering that is not the situation. Beyond all this, there is doubt whether this prohibition is Torah-level, and regarding females there is a double doubt.
Therefore, there may be room to be lenient even for a Jew, and certainly through a non-Jew.
Discussion on Answer
I did not mean to say that there is no prohibition in instructing a non-Jew. Instructing a non-Jew is prohibited in all prohibitions. But it is treated more leniently where there is a need.
The verse can be interpreted in other ways, and of course not as applying to every type of sterilization.
But regarding what you wrote — that we do not derive law from the reason for a verse except for prohibitions that are written explicitly — is this prohibition considered explicitly written?
I think it is not explicit enough. Compare this to “and it consumed in another’s field,” from which we learn the exemption of damage by tooth and foot in the public domain. The Rif and Maimonides do derive its reason and draw a halakhic conclusion from it (about a leaf passing from private property to public property).
Regarding what you wrote, that the prohibition is not written explicitly — after all, it says, “In your land you shall not do so.” And regarding castration through a non-Jew, how does that fit with what Maimonides wrote: “It is forbidden to tell a gentile to castrate our animal”?